Thesis: To trace the degradation of Macbeth from a hero to a conscious villain to an unrepentant tyrant.

III. Macbeth as a non-repentant Tyrant

Macbeth, like most tragedies tells the fall of the protagonist from grace. Macbeth, originally a hero, degrades into a conscious villain who feels guilt and then into an unmerciful, non-repentant tyrant. A man once heralded as a hero becomes the bane of the land and his people.

At the start of Macbeth we are introduced to him and it is implied that he is a great warrior and a great man. He is the hero of the recent battle and is the subject of rewards from King Duncan. In fact one critic describes him as "A great warrior, somewhat masterful, rough, and abrupt, a man to inspire some fear and much admiration. There was in

Macbeth degradation to a conscious villain begins with his first tidings of villainy. These tidings begin when Macbeth hears that the Duncan's son is the next in line for kingship. Macbeth says of this:

Andrews, F. John, ed. William Shakespeare: His Work, II. New York: Charles

This is the point at which we see Macbeth start to become a man driven by his ambition for the throne. A man willing to kill for it. From this point in the story Macbeth's villainy is not yet set in stone and is urged onward by his wife's calls of cowardice. Macbeth soon acts on this ambition through the murder of Duncan. However his acts lead him toward a guilty conscious. After he murders Duncan he is haunted by his guilt. He cries out that "I'll go no more. I am afraid what I have done; Look on 't again I dare not."(II, ii, 49-51) In these lines it is clear that Macbeth regrets his action. According to John Andrews this "is his first attempt to bring about a ... transposition (to transpose "the structural conditions of his own mind into the external world"); in parricidal terms making himself the sole sovereign of his world." (Andrews #?) In other words his need for power is so great that his ambition is willing to "o'erleap" his humanity to get what he desires. His guilt from his murderous action continues throughout Act II, scene ii. In Act II, scene iii we begin to see the cloud of guilt lifted from him and he slowly becomes an unrepentant tyrant.

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Approximate Word count = 1036
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)