Essay/Term paper: Macbeth: macbeth - a human to a killer

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Macbeth

Macbeth: Macbeth - A Human To A Killer


In Shakespeare's play Macbeth the character Macbeth proves to be somewhat
dynamic in his human representation. He starts off as being very human; he is
actually a war-hero. However the seed of change is planted right away when he
meets the witches and they tell him their prophecy of him becoming king. This
makes Macbeth ambitious, and it leads to his demise. Once he kills Duncan the
change rapidly begins to accelerate. By the end of the play, and Macbeth's
killing spree, his transformation is complete and all of his human thoughts and
feelings are gone. Macbeth changes from being a great individual to the focus of
everyone's fear and anger, because he loses his human characteristics of
conscience and remorse.

As the play starts Macbeth is very human; he has feelings and friends and
he is a war-hero. As time elapses, he begins to change into a ruthless killer,
"a tyrant". Once he meets the witches and learns he will become king he begins
to plot and think murderously. When he arrived at a plot to kill Duncan, and
told Lady Macbeth, he realized it was the only way. However, in doing this he
made a lot of people suspicious. This meant that more people would have to be
killed, and this included the king's son who was next in line for the throne. At
this point Macbeth experiences the first of a number of breakdowns, and he
begins to lose his human characteristics. Macbeth begins to fall into a
murderous rage after killing Duncan. He thought this would clear his name, but
it only made things worse. Each person he has killed results in another that
needs to be killed. With each kill Macbeth makes he loses feelings. Macbeth's
conscience is soon deteriorated to nothing, and his killings are numerous. After
killing Banquo and confronting his ghost Macbeth breaks down for the last time.
At this point Macbeth's last shred of remorse are nearly gone. His wife dies and
he barely cares, and then he orders Macduff's family to be killed. Macbeth is
completely crazy at this point, and he begins to believe solely in the witches
prophecy that he cannot be killed by "a man of woman born". This belief
ultimately results in his demise. Macbeth kills a young soldier on his way to
confront Macduff, and he does not care one bit. Here he has become nothing but a
cold-blooded killer, not the least bit human.

Macbeth's change from human to killer is his own doing. He allowed the evil
that is within everyone to overwhelm him. His ambition and need for power put
him through a transformation from hero to killer. Macbeth's conscience and
feelings seemed to leave him. At first he needed Lady Macbeth to coax him into
killing, and at the end he kills on impulse. After a number of mental breakdowns,
Macbeth just loses it. At this point he stops representing anything human, and
displays no human characteristics.