Skip to main content

How does Shakespeare's Macbeth show us a true leader should not resort to the misuse of power?

Shakespeare's Macbeth shows us the beginning and end of Macbeth's downfall once he embraces evil. 


At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a loyal and valiant warrior, praised by everyone, including the king of Scotland. He is given honors for his honesty and bravery, and our first impression is that things could not go better for Macbeth. 


Once we examine Macbeth more closely in his soliloquies, however, we begin to understand he harbors some perilous ambitions which could change his life for good. His tragic flaw is his unrestrained ambition because he is ready to cast aside all the true values for the sake of gratifying his needs. He knows that in order to become the king, he must resort to the most illegal means—he must kill Duncan. 


When Macbeth murders the king with his manipulative wife's help, his life begins to change for the worse. He manages to fulfill his ambition of taking the throne, but he loses other people's support and his own inner peace, stability, and compassion. He turns into an evil murderer, ready to have anyone assassinated if doing so will ensure his security.


Macbeth's abuse of power leads to his own downfall. Macbeth is anything but powerful; he becomes obsessed with protecting himself because he knows he took the throne illegally. His conscience begins to haunt him because of all the misdeeds he committed.  


Once he accepts evil, Macbeth voluntarily deprives himself of the opportunity to lead a meaningful life. Not only is Macbeth defeated at the end of the play, he also realizes his life has become "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more