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1. 
   sagesource Teacher
   High School - 12th Grade

   eNotes Editor

   Since Macbeth is the protagonist of the play and is not presented in an uncompromisingly negative light (as Iago is, for instance), we are safe in assuming that Shakespeare intended his audience to see things from his standpoint and share his emotions to an extent. I would say that Shakespeare did succeed in this. He presents Macbeth as an ambitious man who is clearly superior in some ways to his ruler, King Duncan. He is then told that he will be king, along with other predictions that quickly prove true. Who would not be tempted? But we note that Macbeth immediately comes to the rational conclusion yielded by dispassionate analysis,

   If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me
   Without my stir. (Act I, Scene 3)

   He is tempted, but he seems on the road to resisting temptation -- until he brings others into it. Banquo, by failing to press the point he initially makes,

   But ’tis strange;
   And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
   The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
   Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
   In deepest consequence— (Act I, Scene 3)

   and still more Lady Macbeth, in the raging ambition ignited by Macbeth's communication to her, set up a social context that tempts Macbeth into improving fate by taking an active hand in Duncan's murder. Lady Macbeth even taunts him with unmanliness if he fails to proceed,

   When you durst do it, then you were a man;
   And, to be more than what you were, you would
   Be so much more the man. (Act I, Scene 7)

   One might reasonably object that it is unfair and sexist to blame Macbeth's moral weakness on his wife's nagging, but in a more general sense, that of "peer pressure," it shows Macbeth falling into crime and ruin for a reason most of us can understand and sympathize with. Thus, no matter how bloody his future career becomes, we can become involved in his pain and suffering even while we recognize that he brought them on himself by his own folly.

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/macbeth-text/act-i-scene-iii?start=1

   http://www.enotes.com/macbeth-text/act-i-scene-vii

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   Posted by sagesource on Tuesday June 16, 2009 at 10:32 AM
   
   

2. 
   krathje Teacher
   High School - 11th Grade

   eNotes Editor

   Not really.  I believe the audience is glad, by the end of this play, to see Macbeth defeated and is thrilled that Malcolm will make all things right in Scotland.  Macbeth's tyrannical actions, including his apathy toward the death of his wife, the murder of his close comrade Banquo, and the annihilation of his friend MacDuff's family, cause the audience to turn against Macbeth and wish for his end.  Although Shakespeare paints a strong and courageous Macbeth in the opening scenes, Macbeth's transitions to a coward and then a tyrant make him unlovely to the characters in the play as well. Shakespeare clearly wanted to demonstrate the destruction of a man who is all-comsumed by ambition.

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   Posted by krathje on Friday June 26, 2009 at 1:10 PM