Friday, April 15, 2011

Human Flaw and Shakespeare

Human flaw is a part of everyday life. No one is perfect and Shakespeare made it a point to include a human flaw in all of his plays to show the imperfections of all humans and explain how they can take a toll if one is not careful. In his play, Macbeth, Shakespeare uses the want of power and ambition of Macbeth to destroy him. Macbeth became very greedy and once he had it in his mind that he would be the new king, he refused to stop at nothing to get it. Macbeth's ambition is what led to his down fall. his wife, Lady Macbeth, manipulated him into the first murder and from there everything just fell apart. once one lies or commits a certain crime, things start to unfold and one has to commit another crime or tell another lie to cover for the first and it becomes a pattern. Macbeth listened to his wife and became just as evil and greedy as she was. i believe Shakespeare wrote the play as a warning to his readers about how greed can destroy a person. Shakespeare really focuses on the fact that had Macbeth not listen to the three witches, he would still be alive and so would his wife. Macbeth single handily destroyed his life and all of his happiness through greed and ambition. He continues to listen to the opinion of others instead of what he knows is right and lets others lead him down the path that was never originally designed for him. I believe that Shakespeare was also trying to warn the readers of this. As human beings, everyone has a flaw and everyone wants to be excepted. There are some people out there that will be hoping for nothing more than to bring you down, and others that are just trying to lift you up. we all go to others for approval and acceptance and we listen to their advice in times of need. What one must always decide though, is what is the right path to travel? are you getting advice from someone trust worthy or someone who "look[s] like th'innocent flower, but be the serpant under't (Shakespeare, 19)" it is quite easy to get the two confused and fall right into the paths of the enemy and fall into our own fleshly ways. Shakespeare not only discusses this point in Macbeth, but also in a few other plays, where he warns the readers about humanly flaws.




Sources:

Shakespeare, William. Act 1, Scene 5. Macbeth. Ed. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen. New York, NY: Modern Library, 2009. Print.

Picture Source:

http://sbfmedia.relationalhost.com/index.php?start=93&num=5&categ=6

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