Discuss the transformation of Macbeth from a loyal servant to a ruthless individual.

In the beginning of Shakespeare's, Macbeth, the character, Macbeth is basically an everyday normal type of soldier fighting and killing for his king. His title at this point is the Thane of Glamis. Upon having a great day on the battlefield, including killing MacDonwald, Macbeth has no clue as to what is in store for him. When Macbeth and his friend Banquo meet the witches for the first time, they are completely shocked.

While talking with the witches Macbeth and Banquo are told that Macbeth will be named the Thane of Cawdor, and then later king. They also told Banquo that his children will be kings, but that Banquo would not. After hearing this Macbeth begins to become ashamed with himself to think that he actually thought about killing the king in order to the throne from Duncan.

At this point he is somewhat confused and maybe more curious than anything. His thought was not to do anything drastic to become king. He basically says, whatever happens, happens.

When Macbeth arrives home to his wife, Lady Macbeth, she begins to play mind games with him. She does this by trying to convince him to murder Duncan. She tells him things like “If you were a real man you'd do it”. This upsets Macbeth, and he begins to think that he is actually going to do it, and eventually carries it out. What he doesn't realize is that he will later regret his actions, and wish that he could turn back time.

As soon as Macbeth has killed Duncan, he seems to start to lose his mind. He just doesn't know what to do with himself. In fact, he cannot finish smearing the blood on the chamberlains, lady Macbeth had to. As time goes by Macbeth begins to think that to keep his name clear he must
kill all the people that may pose a threat to him. Even if it means killing his best friend, Banquo. Macbeth did this by hiring people to kill him. They succeeded in killing Banquo but his son Fleance escaped. Although this wasn't the end of Macbeth's killing, for instance he killed one man's (Macduff's) family, which basically didn't make any sense.

After a couple more run ins with the witches, Macbeth completely loses all his ability to think straight and starts killing people just to prevent anyone from finding that he killed Duncan. Not only has Macbeth lost his mind, so has lady Macbeth. She is always caught walking in her
sleep talking about Duncan's death, and she eventually commits suicide.

During the last encounter Macbeth has with the witches, they tell him that no one born of women could harm him, so he obviously thinks he's invincible. In the final scene when Macbeth confronts Macduff, Macbeth told Macduff that no one born of women could harm him. Macduff answers somewhat like this, “My mother died before I was born,” and then chops off Macbeth s head.


In this story, Shakespeare does a very well job in showing what greed can do to someone and how people react to it Throughout the entire story he shows how everybody probably has some sort of evil in them, even if they don't realize it, or don't live long enough to let it come out.

Respond to this in your own words. Try restructuring the whole sample as this will help your recall.

Asmadi