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Add a BloThe Tragedy of Macbethg Post Title

Macbeth (the character, not the play) may be Shakespeare's best example of a tragic hero--an essentially good, noble man with a tragic flaw. Actually, Aristotle said the the ideal tragic hero was a man in whose character good and evil were mixed, but in whom the good predominated, and that description fits Macbeth even better. At the beginning he's a loyal officer fighting the enemies of his King and cousin, Duncan. However, when the witches greet him as Thane of Cawdor and then predict that he will be King, the latent evil in him begins to rouse. He learns almost immediately that he IS Thane of Cawdor, and that fact makes him give more credence to the other prediction--to the extent that he sees Duncan's proclamation of Malcolm as his heir an obstacle to be overcome. (Keep in mind that the Scottish crown at that time did not automatically pass from father to son, so that Malcolm did not represent an obstacle to Macbeth's succession until Duncan made that proclamation.)

Then, Aristotle said that a tragedy should involve a change in fortune, usually that of the protagonist. Macbeth's fortunes rise until he overreaches himself by trying to thwart another part of the prophecy by having Banquo and Fleance murdered. When Fleance escapes, Macbeth realizes that he hasn't succeeded in stamping out Banquo's line, and then his reaction to Banquo's ghost, which only he can see, begins to make his nobles suspicious of him, so that they begin slipping away. By the end of the play, he has lost everything but the one castle he still holds, and he goes out to fight knowing that he will probably die.
I'm not sure this next aspect is really a third characteristic or just an extension of the previous one, but Aristotle also wrote that, although the change or reversal of fortune in a tragedy could go from bad to good (i. e. a happy ending) as well as from good to bad (sad ending), he considered the unhappy ending more artistic. Of course Macbeth (the play) ends with the death of the hero.

Finally, Aristotle said that a good tragedy should elicit two emotions in the audience: :pity and fear. Therefore there must be something pathetic in a good tragedy, and Macduff's family is an excellent example. As for fear, the fear that Aristotle meant was a "There but for the grace of God go I" kind of fear--the fear that, if the viewer weren't careful, he might make similar mistakes and such a downfall might happen to him. The average person in the audience might never have the opportunity to rise to such heights if he would just rub out someone, but many of us have the opportunity to gain something if we would just do something unethical.