Saturday, July 5, 2014

What are the themes of Macbeth?

There are many, but I would say that the two most
important are ambition and fate or destiny.


The theme of
ambition plays out through more or less the whole play.  It is Macbeth's ambitions
(added to those of his wife) that (you can argue) make him do all the things that he
does in this play.


The second theme is brought up by the
witches.  This theme explores how much people's lives are defined by fate and how much
is within people's own control.  Do the witches' prophecies cause Macbeth to do what he
does or does he choose to do these things on his own?

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