Essay/Term paper: The loss of humanity in macbeth

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Macbeth

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.