Who Was Responsible For Macbeth's Downfall

1154 Words5 Pages
Tragedy is an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime or natural catastrophe. An example of great tragedy in my words is “Macbeth”, one of Shakespeare’s darkest and most powerful plays’. The question I will be answering today is ‘who is responsible for Macbeths downfall?’ The Witches and Lady Macbeth are largely responsible for Macbeth’s downfall, although he himself is too. Macbeth, encouraged by his wife, attempts to eliminate the obstacles preventing him from being king. These obstacles happen to be other characters in the play. He accepts the prophecy of the witches as a guide for what will be, and misjudges what they tell him. In the end his overconfidence leads to his own self-destruction,…show more content…
After Macbeth has an encounter with the Witches, we see he is very ambitious and prone to self-doubt. This is seen when he performs the ‘asides’ in the play. For example, he makes short speeches towards the audience about Malcolm becoming Prince of Cumberland and how he is worried. The witches don’t physically create the downfall for Macbeth, but lead him into falling into his own death by way of misleading illusions. They have the power of prophecy, but do no seem to have the power to make events happen. When the Witches delivered the prophecies, Banquo chose not to believe yet Macbeth did. - “Or are you aught That man may question? You seem to understand me,…show more content…
This is shown in the quote: -“We will proceed no further in this business: He hath honored me of late; and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people.” On his way to murder King Duncan, Macbeth sees the vision of the bloody dagger leading the way towards Duncan’s room. Macbeth tells of an ‘soliloquy’ when he sees this vision: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?” This ‘soliloquy’ means that Macbeth knows he must murder Duncan according to his conscience, to gain both the crown and his wives support. Therefore the dagger is not an act of witchcraft, instead a figment of Macbeth’s imagination and his ambitious nature materializing before him. It is his answer hen he is waiting there deciding whether to murder Duncan or not. When Lady Macbeth cannot kill Duncan, this is the moment when Macbeth has to take responsibility for his own actions without blaming anyone else, and he goes and does the deed. While Lady Macbeth provoked and shamed her husband into the plan, he is the one who voluntarily carried it
Open Document