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Dynamics of Good and Evil
Shakespeare’s Macbeth as an an/protagonist tale
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a bloody tale of the shortcuts of ambition and the blindness with which one treads them. At the very beginning of the narrative, Macbeth the general is presented as a brave, honorable fighter and even a hero to his equals and superiors alike. After one of his exploits, he meets witches who welcome him with a title foreign to him and even a future royal rank. Spurred on by this prophecy and his own wife, Lady Macbeth, he kills Duncan — his cousin and crowned King of Scotland — in his sleep to usurp the throne. The crime was committed secretly after the King had done him the honor of visiting his castle. But Macbeth soon realizes that the glory he imagines is precarious due to his illegitimacy, which can easily be exposed. All too soon, more blood is to be spilled in the name of this imagined future.
This negative transformation, which took place within the protagonist at the very beginning, will determine all the other actions in the play. Being their framework, it will allow us to consider them in an easily predictable (purely intuitive) and yet necessary for the viewer sequence — the slowly growing fire in the depths of the self-deluded man. In this brief analysis, I will focus on this very act of awakening and laying evil, its dynamics, and, ultimately, its…
