William Shakespeare and Graham Greene both present characters as being both heroes and villains in the tale of the tragedy of Macbeth and the short novel of The Destructors. Greene portrays ordinary people who have both the capacity of good and evil. Macbeth is different as we have the character of Macbeth who isn’t clear cut as good or evil, throughout the novel his character slowly decays into a villain.
In Macbeth, the first time being switched from the shadowy world of witches to the physical world of battle we are presented with the characters of Ross and the Captain. Shakespeare uses these characters as devices to provide us with an insight into the character of Macbeth heroism. The Captain, covered in blood describes Macbeth as being …show more content…
The first glimpse of villainy in Macbeth is in Act 1 Scene 3 after Macbeth meeting the witches, he says ‘stay you imperfect speakers tell me more’ this quote shows a more negative and naive side to Macbeth that we haven’t seen before as his mind is occupied with possessive thoughts of becoming king. By The Character of Macbeth describing them as ‘imperfect speakers’ it shows that although he is aware of them being an illegitimate source of information he still chooses to listen to their prophecies which is foreshadowing of the indecisiveness and ambition to come. Shakespeare uses this quote to display that Macbeth may not be as noble as previously presented, he does this by asking the witches to stay which highlights his interest in them. This would’ve been seen as a heresy as in the early 1600s there was a strong belief in witches. These would’ve been punishable by death in this time period so Macbeth communicating with them would’ve been a villainous …show more content…
From being informed of the prophecies in Act 1 Scene 3 it takes him just 6 scenes to commit the regicide of King Duncan, although a massive factor the witches weren’t the only reason Macbeth was convinced to go ahead with the murder, after being convinced by Lady Macbeth he says ‘‘I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other’ which shows that Macbeth has a drive to become king. This quote highlights that Macbeth, although he has a yearning to become King, still knows the difference between right and wrong as he refers to a spur (which was used to control a horse) pricking to the sides of his intent meaning that his moral conscience was challenging his integrity. The fact that this passage is a soliloquy adds to the reliability of the quote as it is certain that the words spoken by Macbeth are his own thoughts. By Shakespeare using the word ‘vaulting’ we see that his desire to become king is extreme, this scene is used to create a further dislike for the character of Macbeth because committing regicide would’ve been seen a