Discussion on the nature of the character of Shakepeares Macbeth.

Macbeth's Character allows for seemingly contrary possibilities. He is either a helpless victim whose crime is predestined, will is bound and driven by ineluctable forces to commit evil; or he is already tainted, corrupted with pride and has sold his soul to the devil. Which of the possibilities do you feel best exemplifies him.

Macbeth is tainted with innate evil; he is corrupted with pride and has willingly sold his soul to the devil. This tragedy is distinguished for the lofty imagination that it displays and the tumultuous vehemence of the action. The pressure of preternatural agency urges on the tide of human passion with redoubled force. Macbeth is driven along by the violence of his fate like a vessel drifting before a storm: he reels to and fro like a drunken man; he staggers under the weight of his own purpose and the suggestions of others; he stands at bay with his situation; and from the superstitious awe and breathless suspense into which the communications of the Weird Sisters throw him, is hurried on with daring impatience to verify their predictions, and with impious and bloody hand tears aside the veil over an uncertain future.

Macbeth is a self-divided, equivocating and evil character. The key point to pair him with this definition is his ability for self-evoked and calculated acts of evil, the witches may push him on but it is only because he willingly buys into his evil interpretation of their prophecy that he follows this path

Macbeth is not confused about the criminal nature of his deed. When he kills the king who is his guest and generous lord, he knows as Oedipus did not, that he does a "horrid deed." Even before he does the deed he foresees the outcome, apparently sensing his end will come...