Macbeth Anchor Paper

Nhi Vu

English 3-4 H

20 October

Anchor Paper

Macbeth: an examination of mindlessness

Shakespeare's Macbeth explores arrogance and greed driven by blinding egotism. This fault in Macbeth brings him inner torture in a classic conflict of man with himself where in Act I, sc. iii, he stupidly listens to supernatural voices of the three weird sisters and acts upon their prophecies, thus exposing his weakness of character as a semi-individual rarely doing his own thinking.

In Act I, sc iii, the witches early set into motion the idea that Macbeth is fated to exhaustion and confusion through their paranormal powers. Witch one says that she will, "...drain him dry as hay. / Sleep shall neither night nor day/ Hang upon his penthouse lid" (1, 3, 19-21). She claims powers which are not hers unless Macbeth yields to them through poor judgment. She wrongly claims that, "Though his bark cannot be lost, / Yet it shall be tempest-tost" (25-26) while the reality is that Macbeth very much does lose his bark Ї his direction and sanity Ї as symbolized by the bark. The weird sisters have no power it turns out. Only his submission to their will Ї a choice he makes Ї gives them power.

The approach of Macbeth and Banquo to the sisters early betrays Macbeth's weakness. Rather than sanely doubting the validity of "the strange intelligence" (81) Macbeth is attracted to their rantings. He is dumbly hooked by even crediting their substance, as he insists, and asks, "... [say] why/ Upon this blasted heath you stop our way/ With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you" (81-83). Rather than speak, they vanish, a clue to their meaninglessness which Macbeth does not apprehend, weakened as he is by his moral lapse in respecting them to begin with by wanting to hear what they say in the first place when he says, "Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more!" (75). Imperfect indeed!

Although doubtful at first of "this strange intelligence" his lack of originality and character, as well as lack of self-knowledge, causes him to believe in the foretelling and he dumbly is eager to hear more, since the news over all bears such good tidings in his favor as he naively imagines. With the arrival of Ross and Angus, he hears that he is the Thane of Cawdor, fulfilling half of the prophecies. This fulfillment is entirely a coincidence into which