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Example research essay topic: Act I Scene Law Deposited In His Nature - 3,270 words

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THE CHARACTER OF MACBETH Macbeth is presented as a mature man of definitely established character, successful in certain fields of activity and enjoying an enviable reputation. We must not conclude, there, that all his volitions and actions are predictable; Macbeth's character, like any other mans at a given moment, is what is being made out of potentialities plus environment, and no one, not even Macbeth himself, can know all his inordinate self-love whose actions are discovered to be-and no doubt have been for a long time-determined mainly by an inordinate desire for some temporal or mutable good. Macbeth is actuated in his conduct mainly by an inordinate desire for worldly honors; his delight lies primarily in buying golden opinions from all sorts of people. But we must not, therefore, deny him an entirely human complexity of motives. For example, his fighting in Duncan's service is magnificent and courageous, and his evident joy in it is traceable in art to the natural pleasure which accompanies the explosive expenditure of prodigious physical energy and the euphoria which follows. He also rejoices no doubt in the success which crowns his efforts in battle and so on.

He may even conceived of the proper motive which should energize back of his great deed: The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. But while he destroys the kings enemies, such motives work but dimly at best and are obscured in his consciousness by more vigorous urges. In the main, as we have said, his nature violently demands rewards: he fights valiantly in order that he may be reported in such terms a valour's minion and Bellonas bridegroom he values success because it brings spectacular fame and new titles and royal favor heaped upon him in public. Now so long as these mutable goods are at all commensurate with his inordinate desires and such is the case, up until he covets the kingship Macbeth remains an honorable gentleman. He is not a criminal; he has no criminal tendencies. But once permit his self-love to demand a satisfaction which cannot be honorably attained, and he is likely to grasp any dishonorable means to that end which may be safely employed.

In other words, Macbeth has much of natural good in him unimpaired; environment has conspired with his nature to make him upright in all his dealings with those about him. But moral goodness in him is undeveloped and indeed still rudimentary, for his voluntary acts are scarcely brought into harmony with ultimate end. As he returns from victorious battle, puffed up with self-love which demands ever-increasing recognition of his greatness, the demonic forces of evil-symbolized by the Weird Sisters-suggest to his inordinate imagination the splendid prospect of attaining now the greatest mutable good he has ever desired. These demons in the guise of witches cannot read his inmost thoughts, but from observation of facial expression and other bodily manifestations they surmise with comparative accuracy what passions drive him and what dark desires await their fostering. Realizing that he wishes the kingdom, they prophesy that he shall be king.

They cannot thus compel his will to evil; but they do arouse his passions and stir up a vehement and inordinate apprehension of the imagination, which so perverts the judgment of reason that it leads his will toward choosing means to the desired temporal good. Indeed his imagination and passions are so vivid under this evil impulse from without that nothing is but what is not; and his reason is so impeded that he judges, These soliciting's cannot be evil, cannot be good. Still, he is provided with so much natural good that he is able to control the apprehensions of his inordinate imagination and decides to take no step involving crime. His autonomous decision not to commit murder, however, is not in any sense based upon moral grounds. No doubt he normally shrinks from the unnaturalness of regicide; but he so far ignores ultimate ends that, if he could perform the deed and escape its consequences here upon this bank and shoal of time, held jump the life to come.

Without denying him still a complexity of motives as kinsman and subject he may possibly experience some slight shade of unmixed loyalty to the King under his roof-we may even say that the consequences which he fears are not at all inward and spiritual, It is to be doubted whether he has ever so far considered the possible effects of crime and evil upon the human soul-his later discovery of horrible ravages produced by evil in his own spirit constitutes part of the tragedy. He is mainly concerned, as we might expect, with consequences involving the loss of mutable goods which he already possesses and values highly. After the murder of Duncan, the natural good in him compels the acknowledgment that, in committing the unnatural act, he has filed his mind and has given his eternal jewel, the soul, into the possession of those demonic forces which are the enemy of mankind. He recognizes that the acts of conscience which torture him are really expressions of that outraged natural law, which inevitably reduced him as individual to the essentially human. This is the inescapable bond that keeps him pale, and this is the law of his own natural from whose exactions of devastating penalties he seeks release: Come, seeling night And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale. He conceives that quick escape from the accusations of conscience may possibly be effected by utter extirpation of the precepts of natural law deposited in his nature.

And he imagines that the execution of more bloody deeds will serve his purpose. Accordingly, then, in the interest of personal safety and in order to destroy the essential humanity in himself, he instigates the murder of Banquo. But he gains no satisfying peace because hes conscience still obliges him to recognize the negative quality of evil and the barren results of wicked action. The individual who once prized mutable goods in the form of respect and admiration from those about him, now discovers that even such evanescent satisfactions are denied him: And that which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. But the man is conscious of a profound abstraction of something far more precious that temporal goods. His being has shrunk to such little measure that he has lost his former sensitiveness to good and evil; he has supped so full with horrors and the disposition of evil is so fixed in him that nothing can start him.

His conscience is numbed so that he escapes the domination of fears, and such a consummation may indeed be called a sort of peace. But it is not entirely what expected or desires. Back of his tragic volitions is the ineradicable urge toward that supreme contentment which accompanies and rewards fully actuated being; the peace which he attains is psychologically a callousness to pain and spiritually a partial insensibility to the evidences of diminished being. His peace is the doubtful calm of utter negativity, where nothing matters. This spectacle of spiritual deterioration carried to the point of imminent dissolution arouses in us, however, a curious feeling of exaltation. For even after the external and internal forces of evil have done their worst, Macbeth remains essentially human and his conscience continues to witness the diminution of his being.

That is to say, there is still left necessarily some natural good in him; sin cannot completely deprive him of his rational nature, which is the root of his inescapable inclination to virtue. We do not need Hecate to tell us that he is but a wayward son, spiteful and wrathful, who, as other do, loves for his own ends. This is apparent throughout the drama; he never sins because, like the Weird Sisters, he loves evil for its own sake; and, whatever he does is inevitably in pursuance of some apparent good, even though that apparent good is only temporal of nothing more that escape from a present evil. At the end, in spite of shattered nerves and extreme distraction of mind, the individual passes out still adhering admirably to his code of personal courage, and the mans conscience still clearly admonishes that he has done evil.

Moreover, he never quite loses completely the liberty of free choice, which is the supreme bonum naturae of mankind. But since a wholly free act is one in accordance with reason, in proportion as his reason is more and more blinded by inordinate apprehension of the imagination and passions of the sensitive appetite, his volitions become less and less free. And this accounts for our feeling, toward the end of the drama, that his actions are almost entirely determined and that some fatality is compelling him to his doom. This compulsion is in no sense from without-though theologians may at will interpret it so-as if some god, like Zeus in Greek tragedy, were dealing out punishment for the breaking of divine law. It is generated rather from within, and it is not merely a psychological phenomenon. Precepts of the natural law-imprints of the eternal law- deposited in his nature have been violated, irrational acts have established habits tending to further irrationality, and one of the penalties exacted is dire impairment of the liberty of free choice.

Thus the Fate which broods over Macbeth may be identified with that disposition inherent in created things, in this case the fundamental motive principle of human action, by which providence knits all things in their proper order. Macbeth cannot escape entirely from his proper order; he must inevitably remain essentially human The substance of Macbeth's personality is that out of which tragic heroes are fashioned; it is endowed by the dramatist with an astonishing abundance and variety of potentialities. And it is upon the development of these potentialities that the artist lavishes the full energies of his creative powers. Under the influence of swiftly altering environment which continually furnishes or exists new experiences and under the impact of passions constantly shifting and mounting in intensity, the dramatic individual grows, expands, develope's to the point where, at the end of the drama, he looms upon the mind as a titanic personality infinitely richer that at the beginning. This dramatic personality in its manifold stages of actuation in as artistic creation. In essence Macbeth, like all other men, is inevitably bound to his humanity; the reason of order, as we have seen, determines his inescapable relationship to the natural and eternal law, compels inclination toward his proper act and end but provides him with a will capable of free choice, and obliges his discernment of good and evil.

The Spirit of Humanism &# 038; Macbeth While the witches presence in Shakespeare s tragedy Macbeth assume the role of supernatural beings, it want Shakespeare s intent to portray a classic case of fatalism. On the contrary, Shakespeare uses Macbeth asa way to display the idea of Renaissance humanism. Although the witches did in fact possess uncanny powers, they were in reality not controlling Macbeth, but rather they were tempting Macbeth to act in particular ways. The witches, as well as other significant characters, may have encouraged Macbeth to act in a certain way, yet threadid not by any means determine Macbeth s actions. By comparing the humanist movement and its values to the tragedy Macbeth, it becomes blatantly obvious that Macbeth was intended to demonstrate the basic humanistic qualities.

Under the premise of humanism it is required that there be a centralisation and focus upon humans, ambulance in which elements within reflect without, and all reason must be used to become more angelic than bestial. Although the witches predictions display supernatural properties, their philosophies center around the dealings of mere mortal humans. This gives humans a sense of importance in the workings of the world. Even nature is disturbed as part of fulfilling one of the philosophies (the displacing of Birnam Wood to Dunsinane). Moreover, one of the main theme s of the play, the effects of evil in the life of one man- Macbeth, stresses a centralisation on the individual being. Through the usage of masks in Macbeth, the balance is achieved by blocking off elements within from being focused without.

This is shown in Act I, scene V, as Lady Macbeth talks to Macbeth, she gives him specific instructions: Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: like th innocent flower, But be the serpent under t. (lines 65 67). Or in other words, put on a poker face so no one will suspect us, and be foul though seem fair, as the witches put it in Act I, scene one. And to further display humanistic qualities, Macbeth also uses reason which is used to become more angelic than bestial. This goes back to the struggle between light and dark.

One of the purposes of twilight is to make reason be used for angelic causes. Macbeth uses reason to justify the deaths he orders, causing disorder, and making the situation more bestial. Macduff uses reason to justify killing Macbeth, which restarts the order, and making the situation more angelic. By analysing the times in which Macbeth was written, and by examining the material which was used by Shakespeare to write Macbeth, it becomes clear that Macbeth was intended to be truly humanistic.

While witches were generally accepted and were a part of daily life around the composition of Macbeth (circa 1606), it would have been obvious to the audience at a performance of Macbeth, that the witches did not control Macbeth s actions. This attitude that witches may have possessed magical powers, yet man controls his own destiny was best described by Thomas Cooper through his statement in 1617 in his book, The Mystery of Witchcraft, in which he states Satan cannot preuaileeffectually upon any to their condemnation, unless with full content they yield themselves wholly to his subjection (360). According to this, Macbeth should be able to resist temptation by not giving his consent. Initially Macbethlistens to the witches, rapt, but he is able to retain the ability to act as a morally responsible person and control his ambition. During the conception of Macbeth, Shakespeare used Holinshed s Chronical as guide and source while writing the witches into the play.

Although the Weird Sisters in the Chronical were goddesses of destine born out of atheistic fatalism, Shakespeare s Weird Sisters were, as described in the version of Macbethedited by Alfred Herbage, Elizabethan witches, their prescriptive powers subtly curtailed; they predict, abet, and symbolism damnation but no determine it. Any sense that Macbeth is a helpless victim, his crime predestined, his will bound, is cancelled as the play proceeds (15). Shakespeare knew it, James knew it, every member of the contemporary audience would have known it, the witches were not really foretelling events; rather, they tempt Macbeth to act in particular ways. While Macbeth was indeed encouraged by the witches, as well as his wife, Macbeth was in actuality led on by his own driving ambition. This approach towards Macbeth s driving ambition is best put into words in Magill s book series, Masterplots, in which the witches are described as: Symbolic of evil and prescient of crimes which are to come, but they neither determine nor facilitate Macbeth s actions. They are merely a poignant reminder of the ambition which is already within Macbeth.

Indeed, when he discusses the witches prophecy with Lady Macbeth, it is clear that the possibility has been discussed before (Foster 3591). Hence, the witches are in reality just a reminder to Macbeth of what he has already considered. And although italy seem that Macbeth is driven by the words of his ruthless wife, Edward Foster also argues in Magill sMasterplots that: Nor can we shift responsibility to Lady Macbeth despite her mannish goading of her husband. In one, perhaps amoral, way, she is merely acting out the role of the good wife, encouraging her husband to do what she believes is in his best interests.

In any case, she is rather a catalyst and supporter; shoes not make the grim decision for Macbeth and he never tries to lay the blame on her (3592). While there were numerous reasons for Macbeth not to kill Duncan, such as hes a relative, hes the king, hes a guest, andrew a nice guy, all that disputes for the murder, Macbeth says, is his Vaulting ambition. While initially Macbethseemed to be committing acts of violence as a result of heavy influence from his wife and the witches, in then we see that Macbeth was working on his own because he finishes the tragedy in isolation. Additionally, like all Shakespearian tragedies, the catastrophic ending must be brought about by the tragic flaw, and in this case it happened to be Macbeth s excessive ambition, rather than the influence of a few witches and his wife. Ambition, then, is the driving force of this play; not fate, but a raw, unbridled ambition that will permit nothing toscana in its way. Through an in depth analysis of the role of the witches in Shakespeare s Macbeth, it becomes easy to identify that, as stated by Coleridge in The Complete Illustrated Shakespeare, the witches are merely instruments (522), meaning that Macbeth was in reality solely responsible for his own downfall.

This theory is supported by a statement made by George Fletcher in the March 1844 Westminster Review when he said, Whether the age of Shakespeare still believed in ghosts and witches, is a matter of perfect indifference for the justification of the use which in Macbeth he has made of pre-existing traditions. No superstition can be widely diffused without having a foundation in human nature (Coleridge 522 -The Complete Illustrated Shakespeare). Although some argue that it is conclusive to say that the witches are in actuality fatalistic since the term Weird is similar to Were meaning fate in Anglo-Saxon, others, such as the critic Marvin Rosenberg in The Friendly Shakespeare, have argued that Weird also suggests wayward, or wayward, the witches being projection of Macbeth s wayward imagination (Epstein 422). The witches roles are further defined through their meetings with Macbeth. When the witches address Macbeth, they pretend to be privy to unknowable facts, telling him that will become Thane of Cawdor.

In fact, though, we already know that Macbeth is Thane of Cawdor, eventhough he hasnt yet heard the announcement. In giving him this information, the witches are trying to tempt Macbeth, to allow him to see the possibilities open to him, then let him, his mind tainted by their suggestions, make the decisions on his own. Therefore, Shakespeare s picture of the witches is truly magical (Coleridge 522), as described in the Complete Illustrated Shakespeare, yet despite their freakish powers they were not meant to control Macbeth but rather to tempt him. Despite the appearance of the Weird Sisters in Macbeth, as well as the encouragement of a few influential characters, Macbeth is clearly defined as a portrayal of the true spirit of Renaissance humanism. Macbeth mohave attempted to place the blame away from himself, but the fact that he no longer accepted the responsibility for his actions does not mean that the responsibility is removed, and therefore Macbeth s downfall can betrayed back to the actions of one man, Macbeth. 316


Free research essays on topics related to: law deposited in his nature, act i scene, macbeth to act, imagination and passions, liberty of free choice

Research essay sample on Act I Scene Law Deposited In His Nature

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