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This is a 15 page paper that explores catharsis in Macbeth. The soliloquy from Act V, scene v, is inductively analyzed to reveal the nature of Macbeth's hamartia. Bibliography lists 1 source.
Page Count:
15 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KW60_KFmacbe4.doc
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that, in the context of the play, establishes conditions of inevitability, because of which the tragedy will proceed to its pre-determined conclusion in accordance with the "law of probability or
necessity" (McManus 1999). As a character such as Macbeth interacts with the elements of his narrative, his particular hamartia is responsible for taking him deeper and deeper into the vortex
of events that will end in his death. While hamartia are not typically literally explicated within the play, skillful playwrights such as Shakespeare will often make use of revelatory passages
wherein the audience is shown the characters hamartia laid bare, whether or not the character has this same revelation. In the case of Macbeth, he becomes aware of his tragic
flaw near the end of the play when, following the death of his wife Lady Macbeth, he recognizes the folly of imbuing his own personal ambition with a significance greater
than the ambitions and lives of those around him, a step that compelled him to commit murder, adopt a tyrannical rule over the country of Scotland, and ultimately enter into
a military conflict that he cannot hope to win. Macbeths hamartia, then, is not merely his ambition, but his viewing that ambition as somehow more significant than the ambitions of
others; the pursuit of his ambition crosses over the lines of other individuals freedoms and the laws of human society, and as a result brings about his undoing. Evidence for
this view of Macbeths hamartia can be seen at multiple points throughout the play. Early on, after slaying the kings enemy, the traitorous Macdonwald, Macbeth is rewarded with Macdonwalds former
title of the Thane of Cawdor. This is a high honor to Macbeth, who already holds a landed position as the Thane of Glamis. Being granted privilege over two lordly
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