a noble man, a great warrior, proven in battle and admired and appreciated by his king (Duncan). In the opening scene, before we've even met him, the sergeant fresh from the battle tells Duncan that the rebel Macdonwald was faced down by "brave Macbeth" who "disdain[ed] fortune"--not caring whether he lived or died in the fray--"like valour's minion" hacked his way through the soldiers until he found Macdonwald and wordlessly unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps." Malcolm praises him for being valiant, and the sergeant adds that after Macdonwald's men fled, the Norwegian lord with whom he was allied, having fresh men and supplies, renewed the attack, but Macbeth was not dismayed; instead, he and Banquo doubled their efforts and waded into the battle. We see him being absolutely fearless in the protection of his king and his king's lands. He is noble and loyal. 

When Macbeth learns from the witches that he is to be Thane of Cawdor (defeated in the battle he himself is fresh from) and "king hereafter," he does not believe it until Ross addresses him as Thane of Cawdor. At this point, Macbeth is excited and frightened, because he doesn't understand what it means. He admits that it seems like it's a good thing to have the first prophesy come true, then says: 

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? (I.3.)

He's already considering, deep down, what he might do next to become "king hereafter," but he knows it's unnatural and wrong. 

When Duncan greets him and says he cannot thank him enough, Macbeth responds: 

The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties; and our duties
Are to your throne and state children and servants,
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing
Safe toward your love and honour. (I.4.24-9)

In so many words, he graciously tells the king that he and Banquo simply did their duty, and we have no reason to question his sincerity. 

His first mistake is to tell his wife, via a letter, the Weird Sisters' prophesy. Lady Macbeth admits: 

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'ldst have, great Glamis,
That which cries 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do
Than wishest should be undone.' (I.5.15-25)

In other words, He is Thane of Glamis and now Thane of Cawdor, and (if she has her way), he will be king (what he is promised). But, she admits up front that he is "too full of the milk of human kindness" to "catch the nearest way" (i.e., do it the easy way). She knows he is not the kind of man to cheat his way to the throne; the only way he would take is the holy path. Thus, she confirms that he is a good man, worthy of the honors heaped upon him. 

Of course, Lady Macbeth has no such compunctions. She already knows she'll have to talk him into "catching the nearest way" by "chastising with the valour of [her] tongue." 

In the beginning of I.7, Macbeth--having had the idea of murder planted in his head by his ambitious wife--muses about the consequences of it. He decides that he will not only have to pay for it by going to hell, but that such an action would be known in this life, as well, and he'd have to pay. He realizes that their plans are a "poison'd chalice" which they bring "To [their] own lips," then tells his lady that he will hear no more of the plan. She responds that he must not love her then and accuses him of being a coward. He responds with "Prithee, peace: / I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none." 

His weakness, then--or "tragic flaw," if you will--is the perception of others regarding his manhood. She sees this and accuses him not not being a man if he goes back on his vow to kill Duncan (a vow he did not make, incidentally). 

He fears his own mental illness on the way to murder Duncan, but driven by his wife's insistence, goes and murders the king, re-emerging with the bloody dagger still in his hand. Lady Macbeth meets him and finds him troubled, complaining of hearing voices, and learns he has not "finished the deed"--that is, murdered the grooms, as well, and "gilded their faces" with Duncan's blood, to put the blame on them. Macbeth is too shook up to go back into the chamber, demonstrating that he is still the same man he was, regretting his deeds and now afraid for his soul, so Lady Macbeth does it for him. 

He's begun his downward slide, so when Banquo muses to himself in III.1, "Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all, / As the weird women promised, and, I fear, / Thou play'dst most foully for't," then tells Macbeth he must leave immediately, Macbeth realizes Banquo is onto him and must be silenced. He also is angry, now that the witches' prophesy is coming true, that Banquo is promised a line of kings while Macbeth himself will wear "a fruitless crown," and thus sends out two murderers to finish off Banquo. He admits to his wife that his mind is "full of scorpions"; he fears now the truth that everyone might see. 

He is subsequently haunted by the ghost of his now-murdered friend, and plagued with fear of being found out. In III.4, he has come to fear what Macduff may think, as well, and makes plans to return to the weird sisters for more guidance: 

And betimes I will, to the weird sisters:
More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
All causes shall give way: I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er. 

The last lines of this passage is his acceptance that his deeds have led him to the point that he cannot back out of the situation now, so he may as well go on. 

When he goes to the weird sisters, they summon three apparitions which tell him, respectively, that he is to fear Macduff, that no man of woman born can kill him (Macbeth), and that no harm will come to him until Birnam wood comes to Dunsinane. In his pride, he dismisses all of these, considering the last two impossible, thus discounting the first warning altogether. This is his third mistake: forgetting to be the humble servant he should be, even as the crowned king. He has come to see himself as invincible, a mistake in any mortal. 

Thus, pushed by his ambitious wife (and all she had to do was insult his manhood) then full of his own success, he descends from the man of honor and servitude the play began with to a murderer, a man as cold and thoughtless as his wife had claimed to be. In the end, of course, Birnam wood does come to Dunsinane and he is, in fact, killed by a man who "was from his mother's womb untimely ripped," so technically, "not of a woman born." 

A tragedy is a story in which the main character, usually a hero, is brought to ruin.  The cause of the fall to the hero is often a fatal flaw.  In Macbeth, while the main character, Macbeth, is not a typical hero, he is the main character and he is brought to ruin - his own death - by his fatal flaw which is his blind ambition.  Some argue that Macbeth was a puppet of the witches.  More likely, he is a man with a flaw that the witches were able to see and exploit for their own amusement.  Either way, his flaw may have stayed in check had it not been for the witches and their prophesies so that makes him a somewhat sympathetic character.

According to the standards established by Aristotle in the Poetics, Macbeth himself does not qualify as a tragic hero. His villainy goes well beyond a tragic flaw or hamartia, breaking with the convention that the tragic hero's downfall should not be altogether his own fault. It may be argued that Macbeth's crimes are not necessarily those of his wife. Lady Macbeth is clearly complicit in the murder of Duncan and may be regarded as the driving force behind it, but it is Macbeth who actually commits the regicide. We do not know how much, if any, guilt Lady Macbeth bears for the murders of Banquo and Macduff's family. However, these points raise an even more compelling objection to Lady Macbeth's being considered a tragic hero. The tragic hero should normally be the protagonist of the play and certainly cannot be a mere sidekick. If Lady Macbeth is merely accessory to her husband's crimes then she clearly is not a tragic hero.

Though Lady Macbeth is not a tragic hero by Aristotelian standards, it is worth noting that the same is true of several heroes in Greek tragedy. There is one tragic protagonist in particular who bears some resemblance to Lady Macbeth. This is Euripides's Medea, whose ferocious vengeance is more than a match for Lady Macbeth's white-hot ambition. Medea, however, is a more frightening character than Lady Macbeth, since she actually murders her children. Lady Macbeth only considers that act hypothetically, and then as a terrible alternative to oath-breaking. This means that, although not a tragic hero, Lady Macbeth is similar to, and less culpable than, the protagonist of at least one extant Greek tragedy.

A tragic hero starts out as generally a decent person who is powerful and high-ranking in his society. Because of a tragic flaw or flaws, and the actions that he takes as a result of his flaws, the tragic hero falls (often he dies at the end of the play, but this is not always the case). The tragic hero does evoke the audience's sympathy and pity at certain points in the tragedy, and he is human (flawed), so he exhibits fear. Although he may briefly protest his fate, he eventually comes to accept it. We can see Macbeth exhibit many of the qualities of the tragic hero in Shakespeare's Macbeth.

At the start of the play, Macbeth is a respected thane and battle commander. After the battle in Act I, scene ii, Macbeth is promoted by King Duncan, with whom he seems to have a strong relationship. Once Macbeth is told by the witches that he will one day be King, however, he becomes excessively ambitious, and in the beginning of Act II, he has already murdered Duncan and ascended to the throne. Macbeth exhibits fear during and after the murder of Duncan; in fact, he is so disturbed by what he has done that Lady Macbeth has to go back to plant the daggers on the guards to frame them for the crime (Macbeth refused to go back to the scene because of his fear and disgust). Macbeth's fear quickly transforms into paranoia, and he constantly feels that his position as king is threatened. This leads him to have his best friend killed and to order the murders of Macduff's wife, children, and servants. 

Later in the play, Macbeth returns to the witches and receives a new set of prophecies. These apparitions tell him that he should beware Macduff but that no man born of woman can harm him, and that he will be in power until the trees march up the hill. Macbeth takes these prophecies as a guarantee that he will remain king and he acts recklessly. In a way, this could be seen as Macbeth protesting his fate, though he does not know it yet. The prophecies all come true in the end and Macbeth falls from power, but Macbeth chooses to interpret the predictions in his favor and does not prepare for the oncoming battle in which he is killed. 

Once he starts to see the prophecies coming true in Act V, Macbeth protests by vowing to fight to the death. He will take on Macduff one-on-one, and he still believes that Macduff can't harm him because he must've been born of a woman. However, Macduff was "from his mother's womb / Untimely ripped" (V.viii.15-16). Macbeth continues to fight, but at this point must accept his fate. Macbeth is also seen accepting fate earlier in Act V when he learns of his wife's suicide and gives his famous "Out, out, brief candle!" speech (V.v.23). When Macbeth is killed by Macduff and the rightful heir, Malcolm, is placed on the throne, Macbeth's tragic fall is complete.  

This is an excellent question, but hard to answer. The short answer is that he started off as a good guy but turned into a bad guy because of his ambition. That is the kind of answer you might get from a person who considers him a tragic hero. I believe that Shakespeare was trying unsuccessfully to make the audience feel that Macbeth was a hero, or a tragic hero, and not an out-and-out villain like Richard III or Iago. Shakespeare tried to transfer some of the blame for Macbeth's crime to his wife, suggesting that Macbeth didn't really want to kill King Duncan and wouldn't have done it if Lady Macbeth hadn't kept nagging him. Shakespeare also tried to transfer some of the blame to the three witches, suggesting that he wouldn't have committed the crime if they hadn't convinced him that it was inevitable, that he couldn't help himself. But in the long run he still ends up looking like a bad guy. I don't believe the audience ever sympathizes with him, but I believe Shakespeare wanted the audience to sympathize with him. Macbeth is "called" a tragic hero by some critics, but not everyone would agree that he really is a tragic hero.

This soliloquy can be seen as presenting Macbeth as a tragic hero through the way that the dagger leads Macbeth towards Duncan's chamber and the murder he is going to commit. In a sense, Macbeth sees himself as almost being powerless to resist the dagger that he sees before him: he is a victim of forces beyond his control, whether they are supernatural or emerging from his own unconscious. Macbeth recognises this himself when he asks a series of questions to the dagger about its identity:

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation, 

Proceeding from the heat-opprest brain? 

Macbeth seems to recognise that this dagger could be a result of his own fevered imaginings, but either way, he sees it guiding him towards the terrible crime he is about to commit, and he is a tragic hero in the way that he is unable to resist the dagger's lure and the way that it foreshadows both the blood he will shed with a real dagger and his own blood that will be shed by the close of the play. Macbeth is a tragic hero in this play because in this speech, by determining to kill Duncan, he sets himself on the path to perdition whilst seeming to be helpless to prevent this.  

Macbeth is presented at first as a hero of Scotland, having protected the country from attack and civil war. As is typical with a Shakespearean hero, Macbeth enters the story from a high position of nobility and honor. The opportunity is presented to him to achieve more power through his own efforts at the expense of others. Macbeth ponders this dilemma that is presented in the prophecy of the three witches. Does he let fate give him the throne, or should his own efforts lead him to it? If fate has determined that he will be king, does he need to do anything? Macbeth does not trust fate that extensively, so he decides to take fate into his own hands, committing several murders as a result. He is driven to this by Lady Macbeth, who chides him for being weak. As in the story of the Garden of Eden, the wife (Eve/ Lady Macbeth) drags the husband (Adam/ Macbeth) into sin and evil. This shows a weakness in Macbeth’s character. His hubris is his fatal flaw, as it is with most of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes. With humility, Macbeth could have saved himself, but his pride leads to his downfall and death.

Let's look to Aristotle for some basic characteristics of a tragic hero.  

Characteristic #1 -- The tragic hero is of noble birth and seen as great by common people.  This is true of Macbeth.  He is not some common foot soldier.  He is a military leader with a great big castle/house of his own complete with servants.  Even King Duncan wants to come and see Macbeth and Macbeth's place. Kings don't do that for common plebeians.  

Characteristic #2 -- The tragic hero has some kind of character flaw.  This is often called "the tragic flaw."  It makes the character more relatable because while the character is of great and noble birth, he's also flawed like the "rest of us."  Macbeth's flaw is his ambition.  I have ambition too, so I understand Macbeth's desire to be greater than he already is.  Unfortunately for Macbeth, his ambition doesn't have an off switch.  It's completely unbridled ambition.  He is willing to kill to secure greater power, and he is willing to continue killing in order to keep his newly gotten power.  

Characteristic #3 -- The hero's downfall is only partially his fault.  This is also true of Macbeth, and it ties in with the tragic flaw.  Macbeth can't help himself, because of his tragic flaw.  He has unbridled ambition, which is much more dangerous than "normal" ambition.  Additionally, I often think that if Lady Macbeth were not present, Macbeth might have been able to keep his ambitions in check.  Unfortunately for Macbeth, his wife pushed her husband to the tipping point, and his desire for power took over from there.  

Macbeth meets many of Aristotle’s tragic hero requirements.

Hamartia (tragic flaw): Macbeth does not seem to possess the flaw of ambition at the beginning of the play; in fact, that trait is more strongly exhibited by Lady Macbeth. But as the play progresses, Macbeth becomes more and more ambitious. His ambition is most fully realized when he orders the murder of Macduff’s family.

Peripeteia (reversal of fortune): When Fleance escapes the murderers, Macbeth feels that he has not successfully insured the continuation of his royal line. This leads him to seek out the witches again, who confuse him and fill him with false confidence.

Anagnorisis (critical discovery): There are several points when this occurs. When he finds out that Macduff is technically “not of woman born” he realizes that he can, indeed, be killed by him. When the witches show him a future filled with Banquo’s royal descendants, he realizes that his crown is “fruitless.”

Nemesis (fate that cannot be avoided): This could be applied to several parts of the story. When servants report that Birnam Wood is marching on the castle, Macbeth realizes that the witches' first prophecy has misled him. He cannot escape the coming attack.

It seems a little strange to think of Macbeth in any sort of heroic terms, since he is such a bloody and ruthless tyrant. It is the fact that he started out heroically, in defense of Duncan’s kingdom, and then falls victim to his wife’s manipulative genius, that makes us look at Macbeth in the tragic sense—he was caught up in events that he could not control or foresee the consequences of. 

This is an interesting question and one that is a little difficult to answer because the Renaissance tragic hero--the Shakespearean tragic hero--took on some aspects that were rather different from the aspects defining the Aristotelian tragic hero. By Aristotle's definition, the tragic hero infused the audience with fear and pity while, in the resolution, the catharsis of the drama (Aristotelian dramatic catharsis: the reasonable and natural outworking of the tragic circumstances to a plausible and just resolution) might allow for the hero, like Oedipus, to suffer a fate other than death; you'll recall that Oedipus (like Lear at one stage) was blinded and exiled alone and friendless. In other words, the tragedy need not be so horrible that the hero must die.

On the other hand, by the Renaissance/Shakespearean definition, the tragic hero infused the audience with perhaps more fear and horror than pity (though pity was certainly evoked) while, in the end, the catharsis was seen as a more psychological catharsis in which the audience expended its pent-up impulses toward various forms of pride, greed and revenge by empathizing with the hero who could suffer punishment justly through death. You may recall Macbeth's loveless, friendless and humanly isolated death at the resolution and recognize it as demonstrative of this change in definition. In other words, the  tragedy for the Renaissance/Shakespearean hero was so terrible that he must die to satisfy a plausible and empathetic and just resolution.

Though we are digging out similarities, three differences are (1) the objective and type of catharsis and (2) the degrees of fear and pity and (3) the ultimate end of the hero. With this said, how are the two styles of hero alike? They are alike in that both types of hero operate in life out of a basic flaw in their inner character or out of some largely encompassing mistaken idea or action. For Aristotle, the hero is a good, high positioned man of admirable qualities who has a fatal flaw in his character traits or in his understanding: these flaws (character trait or mistaken understanding) lead to ideas, decisions and actions that result in unmanageable tragedy.

For Renaissance dramatists, like Shakespeare, the hero is similarly a good, high positioned man of admirable qualities and with renown who has a fatal flaw in character traits or in understanding. But for Shakespeare, the flaws at work in creating the tragedy may be both a fatal flaw in character traits and (at the same time) a fatal flaw in understanding that together lead to ideas, decisions and actions that result in fatal tragedy. Think again of Macbeth. His subservient love for his wife was one of his fatal flaws in character, while his fatal flaw in understanding led to grievous mistakes that, when combined with his character flaw, resulted in a tragedy so great that he must die as a result.

So while much about these two styles of hero is different, these aspects are the same and each applies to Macbeth:

• high and powerful standing.
• good men but flawed in inner traits.
• flawed in understanding making fatal decisions.
• catharsis of one kind or the other drives the plausible and just resolution of the tragedy.
• the hero is horribly punished for the tragedy he creates. 

A tragic hero is traditionally defined as a character who's fundamentally decent and noble, yet brought down by a fatal flaw. At the start of the play, there can be little doubt that Macbeth is indeed a noble character. He's proven himself to be an immensely brave, hardy warrior on the field of battle. Indeed, no less than King Duncan openly calls him "noble Macbeth," and he shows his immense gratitude to Macbeth by conferring upon him the titles of Thane of Glamis and Thane of Cawdor.

Even when Macbeth goes to visit the Weird Sisters, he still (at first) retains his sense of nobility. When they prophesy that he will one day become king, he doesn't seem exactly thrilled at the prospect, as Banquo notices:

Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear

Things that do sound so fair? (act 1 scene 3)

He’s here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. (act 1 scene 7)

Macbeth is a tragic hero because he was once a valiant warrior, but he had a fall. 

We know that Macbeth was a good soldier.

 For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name—

Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,

Which smoked with bloody execution,(20)

Like valor's minion carved out his passage

Till he faced the slave, (Act 1, Scene 2, p. 9)

Often the tragic hero’s tragic flaw is vanity.  This is the case with Macbeth, but his flaw is also ambition.  He was always ambitious, but when the witches offered him the kingship he could not turn it down.  He decides to act to become king, by killing the king and framing the next in line. 

This is why Macbeth is really a tragic hero.  He was a hero, but his flaw got the best of him and he brought down himself, his wife, and his kingdom.

Aristotle, in Poetics, was very rigid in his defining of the characteristics of the tragedy. Aristotle defined the tragedy through six common characteristics.

"Tragedy, then, is a process of imitating an action which has serious implications, is complete, and possesses magnitude; by means of language which has been made sensuously attractive, with each of its varieties found separately in the parts; enacted by the persons themselves and not presented through narrative; through a course of pity and fear completing the purification (catharsis, sometimes translated "purgation") of such emotions." (Poetics of Aristotle)

Based upon this definition of the tragedy, William Shakespeare's Macbeth imitates the treachery seen during the period of kings. Not only that, these treacherous acts (as in the murder of King Duncan) possesses both "magnitude" (the death of the king) and "serious implications" (the belief that Macbeth is responsible for the murder of Duncan).

The language of Macbeth is "sensually attractive" (shown in both the elevated dialogue and soliloquies). Likewise, no narrative proves the language to be sensual, only the dialogue and actions of "the persons themselves" do this. Essentially, no one narrator is telling the audience the message; instead, the characters on stage are defining themselves on their own.

Engaged readers are drawn to the emotions of the characters. Some may feel pity and fear as the play progresses, while others may feel cleansed by the drama.

All of this said, one can justify that Macbeth is successful at following Aristotle's characteristics of the tragedy.

Aristotle describes a tragic hero as one who goes from good to bad, not one who goes from bad to good. He also states that the tragic hero is not initially eminently or completely good. The tragic hero is recognizably good either in reputation or deeds. The tragic flaw (hamartia) is some frailty that leads the hero to make a bad decision.

Aristotle also suggests that the audience pities the tragic hero. It's really up to the reader to determine whether or not Macbeth deserves our pity. If we look at him as an impressionable man, persuaded by the witches' prophecies, thinking they were supernatural and therefore accurate predictions of his fate, then his pitiable flaw is impressionability, surely one we can sympathize with.

But if his flaw is pride or thirst for power, it is more complicated. But like Aristotle's description, the tragic hero has to be good and then become bad. Macbeth begins the play as a noblemen and a successful soldier, loyal to the king. Also, consider that Macbeth is plagued by guilt. This suggests traces of his former virtuous self. If we can't be sympathetic with Macbeth after multiple killings, we may pity him because of his fall from virtue to evil, a fall which may have as much to do with supernatural influence and subsequent psychological turmoil as it did his own pride.

I would recommend the summary and study guides that are available on eNotes. When it comes to Shakespeare plays, eNotes has robust summaries and various analyses. You could probably find a fair amount of guidance regarding thesis statements from the character and theme breakdowns provided by this website.

I can't help you pick the "easiest" topic because that is personal. The easiest topic is likely going to be the topic that you feel most strongly about. The tragic hero angle is a common topic of exploration regarding the character of Macbeth. It might not be the easiest topic because it does require you to know what a standard tragic hero is. If you don't already know that, then you are going to have to spend time researching it and then figure out how Macbeth himself is (or is not) a tragic hero.

My recommendation would be to examine, compare, and contrast Macbeth with another character. I would choose Lady Macbeth because it lets you compare and contrast two characters like the prompt requires, but it also lets you explore the gender roles prompt. Focus on how Lady Macbeth does not fit the stereotypical, feminine gender role of being soft, compassionate, loving, caring, etc. Use the scene where she insults Macbeth until he decides to go through with Duncan's murder.

Your thesis statement could be something like the following thesis statement.

"Although Macbeth and Lady Macbeth first appear to embody stereotypical gender roles, it becomes quite clear to readers that each character has far more depth than the traditionally portrayed man and woman."

This thesis lets you explore standard gender roles while forcing you to compare how Macbeth and his wife are different from the norm and from each other.

According to Aristotle (and Shakespeare's tragedies are based on the Greek definition of tragedy), a tragic hero has specific characteristics.

First, the hero must be a great man. This does not mean that he is a great guy, but that he has achieved a reputation of greatness some how.

Macbeth is a great man: he is a valiant warrior for Duncan, the King of Scotland. His prowess in battle is recounted for the King after Macbeth defies the odds—being outnumbered—to face and kill the traitorous Macdonwald:

For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name—

Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,

Which smoked with bloody execution,

Like valor's minion carved out his passage

Till he faced the slave,

Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,

Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,

And fix'd his head upon our battlements. (I.ii.18-25)

In other words, Macbeth fights his way through crowds of the enemy until he faces Macdonwald ("slave"); without discussion, Macbeth engages in life-or-death battle until he gains the advantage and slits the man open—"from his navel to his chin;" then he puts Macdonwald's head on the battlements of the Scottish castle for all to see.

The next requirement is that the hero must have a flaw that causes him to make a terrible mistake. In Macbeth's case, he is driven by "vaulting ambition:" ambition that knows no bounds. 

I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself

And falls on the other— (I.vii.25-28)

Our hero must then die, a fate brought on by his tragic flaw. In this case, Macbeth has become a tyrant; he has murdered anyone who he even suspects of treason. Figuratively speaking, his hands are bloody with his victims (innocent or guilty) that he has arranged to have killed. He knows at one point he can never turn back—in killing King Duncan, he has lost his immortal soul. He is truly a tragic figure at the end, especially in light of the great man he once was.

In the end, knowing the witches have tricked him with their half-truths—their lies—he fights to the death. His bravery is the only aspect of Macbeth that still remains as he faces Macduff (whose family he has also slaughtered):

MACBETH:

I will not yield,

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,

And to be baited with the rabble's curse.

Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,

And thou opposed, being of no woman born,

Yet I will try the last. Before my body

I throw my warlike shield! Lay on, Macduff,

And damn'd be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!” (V.viii.32-39)

Along with many of the heroes in Shakespeare's plays, Macbeth is a tragic hero.