Belinsky once said of Macbeth: "Shakespeare's Macbeth is a villain, but a villain with a deep and powerful soul, so he evokes not disgust but sympathy." You will see that he is such a person, he contains both the possibility of victory and defeat, and if it is another aspect, he may become another person. ”
Macbeth is one of the four tragedies written by the British dramatist Shakespeare, born in the early 17th century. At that time, Britain was in the stage of transformation to a capitalist society, with social unrest, intensification of contradictions between people, and human greed. In such a realistic background, many people often make wrong judgments and choices because of a momentary "confusion", and eventually end up sloppily.
Aristotle once pointed out that tragedy is the imitation of action, and the purpose is not to imitate human qualities, but to act.
Because of the wrong choice, the wrong action was carried out; and it was because of the wrong action that the tragedy finally occurred. Therefore, choice is very important both for action and for a person's success or failure. Once a wrong decision is made, it will trigger a series of bad things like dominoes.
Macbeth, however, was a man who would not choose. He was supposed to be a great hero who was admired and heroic, but because of his wrong choice again and again, he degenerated into a great evil man who killed people for the purpose of achieving his goals. He deceived the people, killed the king, washed the families of his subjects in blood, and became the wicked in the eyes of the people; he indulged his desires and pursued power, but he was entangled in fear. Therefore, in the midst of contradictions and entanglements, they will choose to resign themselves to fate.
Macbeth begins with a wrong choice and ends with a wrong choice, one wrong step at a time. If he hadn't made a mistake, he might not have become a ghost under the sword, let alone scrawled out.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >1. Neither the instigation of a witch nor the instigation of a lady can withstand the power of Macbeth's desires</h1>
Aristotle once said, "Indulging one's desires is the greatest scourge." There is nothing wrong with desire itself, but if it is indulged and desire is not restricted in any way, it will harm others and harm oneself. After Macbeth made a contribution to the country, his heart began to swell. On his way home, he met the witch and received three prophecies: "Macbeth will be Knight Court; he will become the future king of Scotland; and the descendants of Bancor will come to a kingdom.".
At first, Macbeth did not believe the witch's words, until he was really knighted, as the prophecy indicated, that he believed the prophecy and told his wife everything he had prophesied. As a "virtuous helper", Lady Macbeth knows Macbeth's mind. So when she instigated Macbeth to kill Him, Macbeth actually killed Duncan. And if Macbeth hadn't been so "obedient," the string of tragedies that followed wouldn't have happened.
Some people say that it was the witch who killed him, because the witch has always been a repulsive image, so her prediction at that time must have been a "conspiracy"; others said that It was Lady Macbeth who killed him, because Lady Macbeth not only did not dissuade him, but also provoked him not to let "I dare" and pulled the hind legs of "I want".
But in fact, whether it is the instigation of the witch or the instigation of the lady. For Macbeth, an adult with a sound personality and independent thoughts, if he himself did not covet the throne, he would not heed the encouragement of others and act at all. Therefore, the witch's prophecy and the lady's incitement are only the release of Macbeth's long-suppressed self.
As Hegel once said, "The prophecies of the witches are precisely the desires of Macbeth's private heart, and this desire is only to take this apparent external way to reach his consciousness and make him understand." ”
Therefore, Macbeth's choice to kill the king, to choose to indulge his own desires, is actually to follow his own heart. The real reason for his choice and action could not escape the Sphinx factor.
The "Sphinx factor" refers to the confrontation between the human factor and the animal factor in an individual.
From an ethical point of view, the sin of seizing the throne is unforgivable, so under the constraint of human factors, Macbeth has been unable to make up his mind. But the animalistic factor in his body liberated his own desires, and he was constantly encouraged to kill Duncan. Therefore, Macbeth urgently needs to find an "excuse" to escape the inner self-blame. So he told the lady of the witch's prophecy, because he knew that the lady understood his ambitions and would persuade him to kill the king. The so-called "witch" is not a messenger from God, because she is simply an illusion created by Macbeth's subconscious.
In his psychodynamic model, Freud proposed that all those dark ambitions and desires that are sealed in the subconscious mind are always in a state of inhibition so that they cannot break through the shackles and enter consciousness. Therefore, in order to be able to enter consciousness, they have to disguise themselves as other forms, such as dreams, and so on.
From the first encounter with the witch, Macbeth blurted out "I have never seen such a gloomy and bright day", which is strikingly similar to the meaning of the witch's statement that "beauty is ugly and ugly is beauty"; to macbeth's second solo encounter with the witch, no one can prove whether the witch really appeared. The author constantly gives hints, intended to make the reader understand that the witch is nothing more than Macbeth's fantasy. In other words, the so-called "divine will" is nothing more than Macbeth's inner subconscious.
Therefore, the killer who seems to be forced by external forces is basically macbeth's beastly factor, the choice after overcoming the human factor. Unfortunately, Macbeth, after the killing of the king, was not satisfied.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2. After choosing to pursue power, Macbeth decided to wash his family in blood in order to get rid of his fear</h1>
Macbeth once said, "What begins with unrighteousness must be consolidated by evil tricks."
After murdering Duncan, Macbeth became the new monarch of Scotland as he wished, and he increasingly greedily enjoyed the dignity that power brought him. However, this unjust usurper did not bring some peace to Macbeth's heart. The thought that Banko's descendants would "seize" his throne made him so frightened that he even suffered from a "power fetish."
"Power purity" refers to extreme political ideas or political decisions made in order to achieve one's own political interests or to obtain maximum political power.
So, driven by the purity of power, Macbeth killed Banko's family in order to consolidate his position. Whether it was killing the king, slaughtering the families of important ministers, or deceiving the people, Macbeth's extreme methods caused him to lose the hearts of the people. "Those who have gained the tao have much help, and those who have lost the way have little help", in the eyes of everyone, Macbeth has become a great traitor and a great evil person.
Therefore, when Macbeth chose to pursue power and take extreme measures to slaughter good people, he was doomed to tragedy.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >3. Contradictory personality makes Macbeth choose to obey fate in fear</h1>
After Malcolm and Macduff met, with the help of foreign aid and fleeing Scottish nobles, they launched a crusade against Macbeth. Macbeth, whose great power has gone, eventually becomes the ghost of Macduff's sword. Just as he chose to release his desires and pursue power, Macbeth's death was also due to his own choice.
Macbeth believed that men who came out of a woman's belly were vulnerable, so when the enemy came, Macbeth no longer actively prepared for battle, but reacted passively. Because Macbeth believed that "everything is in vain" and that "life is meaningless." Therefore, he could no longer gallop on the battlefield like before, but chose to obey orders and accept orders.
Aristotle believed that "the root cause of the tragedy should not be attributed only to a fate that is uncontrollable, but to man's own character and behavior." ”
In fact, the reason why Macbeth chose to obey orders was also because of his contradictory personality. Macbeth always understood the "way of the king" and the "righteousness of kinship", and also understood that killing the king was a capital offense. But after some psychological struggle, he still chose desire. However, when he joined forces with his wife to kill Duncan, his heart did not get some peace, but was filled with fear. In order to get rid of the fear brought to him by "sleeping", Macbeth even quit sleeping.
As a result, Macbeth, who was mentally at a high level of tension and almost insane, finally could not escape the "fate" and became a loser in life.
Macbeth's character was always contradictory, he wanted to usurp the throne, and he was afraid that he would be punished; on the other hand, he had ambition, and at the same time, he hesitated, unable to be a big traitor and a great evil person. Under such contradictions and entanglements, the "prophecy" of the witch's destiny became the "command" of Macbeth's action. So he obeyed the "Mandate of Heaven" and killed Duncan, and resigned himself to the "Destiny" and accepted the punishment of death.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >4</h1>
"Newton chose to investigate the root cause of the apple landing, so he discovered gravity; Yuan Longping chose to engage in scientific research on the land, so he solved the problem of food and clothing for hundreds of millions of people."
Life is a journey full of choices, if you can make the right choice, then you may contribute to humanity; and if you can't seriously weigh and make the wrong choice, the end may hurt both others and yourself.
For Macbeth, he should have been a great hero who was admired, but because he mistakenly chose to release his desires and pursue power, he lost the hearts of the people and was attacked. Each of us will encounter many choices in this life, and each choice will bring a different ending. In fact, any small choice has the potential to change your life.
Although the greatest sorrow of people is the choice made against their hearts. But if your choice violates ethics and morality and hurts other innocent people, then your "choice" is bound to not get the "favor" of fate. Just like Macbeth, blood-stained choices are destined to be punished with blood-stained.
Gibran once said, "Much of the suffering is your own choice." ”
This sounds pessimistic, but it is not without reason. A bad choice at the expense of hurting others will not only bring you a painful life, but also bring endless harm to others. Therefore, let us not only care about liberating our own desires every time we make a choice, but also think about others in order to make a "harmless" choice. Finally, I hope that every choice you make can live up to the time.