evilmac Macbeths Evil Aspect Essay - 4023 Words

Macbeths Evil Aspect Macbeth by William Shakespeare rrepresents unrelenting evil from beginning to end. Who is th emost evil? What motivates the evil intentions and actions? This paper intends to answer these questions. Charles Lamb in On the Tragedies of Shakespeare explains the impact of evil as seen in Macbeths initial murder: The state of sublime emotion into which we are elevated by those images of night and horror which Macbeth is made to utter, that solemn prelude with which he entertains the time till the bell shall strike which is to call him to murder Duncan, - when we no longer read it in a book, when we have given up that vantage-ground of abstraction which reading possesses over seeing, and†¦show more content†¦The kings evil and its cure and the graces which hang about the English throne are briefly described. [. . .] It marks the turning point, and it introduces the notion of the appeal by faith to Divine Grace which will reverse the evil course of the action when Malcolm and Macduff learn to outrun reason in that way, instead of by responding to the Witches supernatural solicitations as Macbeth has done. (110) Clark and Wright in their Introduction to The Complete Works of William Shakespeare interpret the main theme of the play as intertwining with evil: While in Hamlet and others of Shakespeares plays we feel that Shakespeare refined upon and brooded over his thoughts, Macbeth seems as if struck out at a heat and imagined from first to last with rapidity and power, and a subtlety of workmanship which has become instructive. The theme of the drama is the gradual ruin through yielding to evil within and evil without, of a man, who, though from the first tainted by base and ambitious thoughts, yet possessed elements in his nature of possible honor and loyalty. (792) The Tragedy of Macbeth opens in a desert place with thunder and lightning and three Witches who are anticipating their meeting with Macbeth, There to meet with Macbeth. They all say together the mysterious and contradictory Fair is foul, and foul is fair. King Duncan learns that brave