The Loss of Humanity in MacBeth Essay Example For Students

The Loss of Humanity in MacBeth Essay In Shakespeares play Macbeth the character Macbeth proves to be somewhat dynamic in his human representation. He starts off as being very human; he is actually a war-hero. However the seed of change is planted right away when he meets the witches and they tell him their prophecy of him becoming king. This makes Macbeth ambitious, and it leads to his demise. Once he kills Duncan the change rapidly begins to accelerate. By the end of the play, and Macbeths killing spree, his transformation is complete and all of his human thoughts and feelings are gone. Macbeth changes from being a great individual to the focus of everyones fear and anger, because he loses his human characteristics of conscience and remorse. As the play starts Macbeth is very human; he has feelings and friends and he is a war- hero. As time elapses, he begins to change into a ruthless killer, a tyrant. Once he meets the witches and learns he will become king he begins to plot and think murderously. When he arrived at a plot to kill Duncan, and told Lady Macbeth, he realized it was the only way. However, in doing this he made a lot of people suspicious. This meant that more people would have to be killed, and this included the kings son who was next in line for the throne. At this point Macbeth experiences the first of a number of breakdowns, and he begins to lose his human characteristics. Macbeth begins to fall into a murderous rage after killing Duncan. He thought this would clear his name, but it only made things worse. Each person he has killed results in another that needs to be killed. With each kill Macbeth makes he loses feelings. Macbeths conscience is soon deteriorated to nothing, and his killings are numerous. After killing Banquo and confronting his ghost Macbeth breaks down for the last time. At this point Macbeths last shred of remorse are nearly gone. His wife dies and he barely cares, and then he orders Macduffs family to be killed. Macbeth is completely crazy at this point, and he begins to believe solely in the witches prophecy that he cannot be killed by a man of woman born. This belief ultimately results in his demise. Macbeth kills a young soldier on his way to confront Macduff, and he does not care one bit. Here he has become nothing but a cold-blooded killer, not the least bit human. Macbeths change from human to killer is his own doing. He allowed the evil that is within everyone to overwhelm him. His ambition and need for power put him through a transformation from hero to killer. Macbeths conscience and feelings seemed to leave him. At first he needed Lady Macbeth to coax him into killing, and at the end he kills on impulse. After a number of mental breakdowns, Macbeth just loses it. At this point he stops representing anything human, and displays no human characteristics. Category: Shakespeare .