In Shakespeare plays, the tragic hero is what makes the entire story. A tragic hero is described as protagonist with a high standard, someone who undergoes meaningful suffering, learns from his/her mistake somehow, creates some kind of pity or fear for the audience, and has a flaw in their personality that leads to their downfall (otherwise known as a tragic flaw). In the play Macbeth, our central character, Macbeth, becomes our tragic hero. Throughout the play Macbeth, traits in Macbeth’s personality, such as ambition and paranoia, and his ultimate downfall are what categorizes him as the story’s tragic hero. The entire plot of the story is centered around one thing: Macbeth’s ambition. His ambition is the reason there is a story and also
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After Macbeth kills Duncan, he begins to hear sounds and hallucinate floating items, people no longer exist, and the cries of innocent people saying, “Macbeth does murder sleep”. In Act II, Scene 2, Macbeth is explaining his experience of killing Duncan to Lady Macbeth and cries, “There’s one did laugh in ‘s sleep, and one cried ‘Murder!’ That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them. But they did say their prayers and addressed them again to sleep,” (II. 2. 20-23) With his insanity getting the best of him, he begins to eliminate everyone and everything that may know he killed the King. For example, while attempting to kill Fleance so the prophecy would not come true, he killed Banquo on speculation of knowing Macbeth’s secret. The guilt of killing Banquo then took over his mind, resulting in the hallucination of Banquo’s body at Macbeth’s big dinner. Afterwards, even though he kept a confident appearance after the witches told him the apparitions, he lost his head completely at the end of the story. When Lady Macbeth died and the apparitions had come true, he began to think his life was pointless, causing him extreme guilt for his actions after he realized what he had done. Paranoia plays a big role in Macbeth’s ultimate downfall in supporting the argument that Macbeth is a tragic
After Macbeth kills Duncan, he begins to hear sounds and hallucinate floating items, people no longer exist, and the cries of innocent people saying, “Macbeth does murder sleep”. In Act II, Scene 2, Macbeth is explaining his experience of killing Duncan to Lady Macbeth and cries, “There’s one did laugh in ‘s sleep, and one cried ‘Murder!’ That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them. But they did say their prayers and addressed them again to sleep,” (II. 2. 20-23) With his insanity getting the best of him, he begins to eliminate everyone and everything that may know he killed the King. For example, while attempting to kill Fleance so the prophecy would not come true, he killed Banquo on speculation of knowing Macbeth’s secret. The guilt of killing Banquo then took over his mind, resulting in the hallucination of Banquo’s body at Macbeth’s big dinner. Afterwards, even though he kept a confident appearance after the witches told him the apparitions, he lost his head completely at the end of the story. When Lady Macbeth died and the apparitions had come true, he began to think his life was pointless, causing him extreme guilt for his actions after he realized what he had done. Paranoia plays a big role in Macbeth’s ultimate downfall in supporting the argument that Macbeth is a tragic