Macbeth

• Tragic hero


  • He displays heroic characteristics
  • He has a fatal character flaw (hamartia): his ambition
  • Despite his hamartia, the audience does feel some sympathy for him
  • He is doomed to die at the end of the play
• Macbeth at the beginning of the play

  • Brave: he is shown to be a fearless warrior (an "eagle" and a "lion" in battle)
  • Noble: it is reported that he has killed a traitor in battle, showing his loyalty to King Duncan and Scotland in general
  • Ambitious: unlike his comrade Banquo, he is easily seduced by the witches' dangerous prophecies
  • Conscientious: he questions the morality of committing regicide, which leads Lady Macbeth to challenge his courage and manliness
• For Macbeth


  There is a tension between the heroic and loyal aspect of his character and the ambition. This results in him questioning his actions repeatedly, but ultimately succumbing to his darker desires
• Macbeth as the play progresses

  • Cruel: he murders his best friend, Banquo, and the wife and children of Macduff
  • Paranoid: he begins to suspect even innocent people are threats to his power, and even stops sharing things with Lady Macbeth ("full of scorpions is my mind")
  • Guilty: his hallucinations represent his increasing feelings of guilt for the regicide and murder of Banquo
  • Masculine: he becomes the cruel, violent man that Lady Macbeth accuses him of not being, and becomes the dominant force in their relationship
  • Nihilistic: ultimately, he questions the pointlessness of life. For a Christian, Jacobean audience, this would be seen as disturbing
• Despite his hamartia, and the barbaric villain Macbeth becomes, there are still reasons for an audience to feel sympathy for him
• Reasons for audience sympathy

  • He is tempted by evil witches
  • He is encouraged by a thoroughly unnatural woman, Lady Macbeth
  • He is thoroughly human: he is not pure evil, but a mixture of positive and negative character traits
  • His emotional reaction to his wife's death and questioning of his own actions as a result (Act V, Scene V)
  • Even at the end of the play, he dies a warrior's death, which could be seen by a Jacobean audience as heroic