Shakespeares Macbeth - Villain, Tragic Hero, or Simply Ambitious ? Ess

Macbeth Villain, Tragic Hero, or Simply Ambitious ? The play MacBeth conforms to the interpretation of a tragedy A play in verse or in prose dealing with tragical events, usually ending in the free fall of the protagonist1. However, many sections of MacBeth do not describe a tragic hero, but merely a villain or a noble who is overly ambitious and pays the consequences for his actions. MacBeth is a tragedy that challenges the very foundations of that genre, set by Aristotle and Plato in the third century B.C. These foundations had been part of the text Poetics, in which Aristotle listed the sixer requirements of dramatic tragedy, one of which is the inclusion of a tragic hero, a of import that has been followed by many tragedians including Sophocles, Aeschylus, ONeill and Shakespe be himself in his other tragedies. MacBeth however is disparate from these tragedies in that the protagonist is not clearly defined as a tragic hero, the reader may view glimpses of a hero in MacB eth but not in substantial amounts, so this is neither exclusively validated nor revoked by Shakespeare. In order to come to a ending the reader must take into consideration not only MacBeths intentions but those of the people around him as well, such as gentlewoman MacBeth and the three Weird Sisters, both of whom can be deemed to have influenced his actions in some way. MacBeths d protestfall and ultimate fate begins with his decision to bump off King Duncan. Yet, from what the reader has seen of MacBeth so far, this action seems highly off of character. He is initially portrayed a loyal warrior who has a wife and his own castle, and yet he still chooses to murder Duncan. The apparent reason for this is ambition, we are told this by Ma... ...d, not once was he forced into doing anything that was not craved by him. On many occasions, the reader is tempted to see MacBeth as a simple villain and yet his resolve to carry out what he had already started influences them to rethin k their opinion on his status as a villain. This remarkable blend of a tragic hero, a villain and a man beset with sheer determination is one that allows MacBeth to stand out arguably as one of the finest morality plays ever written. 1. Concise Oxford mental lexicon Bibliography English 366 Studies in Shakespeare Introduction to Macbeth http//www.mala.bc.ca/johnstoi/eng366/index.htm Barnet, Sylvan. Shakespeares MacBeth, Signet Classic 1987 Shakespeares Macbeth, a Play for our Time http//www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/mac/intro.html Aristotle, Poetics http//planetpapers.com/poetics/1209.html