Macbeth: Fate vs Free Will Essay

Fate versus free will is a huge theme in the play Macbeth. It is Macbeth's fate that leads his free will to act the way he does. When the witches say "All hail Macbeth the future king" (I.iii.51) it leads Macbeth down a road of death and self-destruction. If Macbeth hadn't known

In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, changes happen. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a well liked and good man of Scotland, who turns into an evil, cold hearted, murderer by the end. His rewards and punishments could have been predetermined by fate, but the actions he took to get to get those rewards and punishments were determined by Macbeth’s free will. In Macbeth, he attempts to control the future and hide the past by listening to other people and committing multiple murders of innocent people.

Throughout life, many of us will find ourselves in some of the worst situations that leave us wondering who’s to blame. The truth is that the misfortunes that befall us are due to our own actions and sometimes due to fate or bad luck. Fate is one person's destiny and it can not be understood by simple mortals but a greater power beyond human comprehension. Fate is so powerful that it can control a person's outcome on life before it happens. Many people tend to become victims of fate in which they catch a glimpse of what their future is going to look like, but do not totally take hold of the outcome. Macbeth can not fully realize the possible outcome of his fate because he is human, and therefore is a victim to his power driven

Throughout the play, Macbeth proves that there is a destiny, it just a matter of how one chooses to attain it. Destiny is a thing to be achieved, through choices. Fate has no bearing over what choices are made. Yet, Macbeth may not have made the same choices

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, there is a question as to whether or not Macbeth is driven by fate or free will. The three weird sisters approach Macbeth with prophecies that will all come true in the end. It would appear that Macbeth is just following destiny at first. However, Macbeth always had a choice throughout the play to choose his own fate. Macbeth journeyed to his murderous doom through his own free choice.

Fate has sundry meanings. One of the meanings of fate: power that predetermines events. Destiny’s definition suggests that events will occur and do not change. Whatever unravels in life cannot change by mankind. The statement has undivulged meanings; fate has the opportunity to change if the person wants events to end differently. However, wrong decisions will only seal fate. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, The fate becomes confirmed through Lady Macbeth wanting more power, Macbeth’s inner conflict, and the three witches tricking Macbeth and leading him to his demise.

- which attributes his actions to ambition, both his and Lady Macbeth's, alone. While it is also possible to interpret fate as guiding Macbeth's decision supernaturally, as when he envisions a dagger that ‘…Marshal'st me the way that I was going' (2.1.42-44), this is just as easily interpreted as being Macbeth's often imaginative decision making process. Furthermore the guilt that Macbeth feels after the murder indicates that even he finds himself, and not an irresistible force of fate, responsible for Duncan's murder, which precedes and is largely responsible for his own death.

In the beginning of the play, a group of witches prophesize that Macbeth would become king, and Macbeth decides to act on this and kill the king himself. After killing Duncan, he states that “There is none but (Banquo) whose being I do fear” and decides to kill him as well (3.1.59). He heard the witches say that Banquo’s sons would be kings, which threatened Macbeth’s position. Therefore, because Banquo and his family would likely become a threat, Macbeth killed them. This choice to remove Banquo was in order to protect himself, and was a result of the free will that he had. Similarly, in the final act when an army was rebelling against him, he told his staff to “Hang those that talk of fear” (5.3.43). He did not want fear to spread through his town because this would weaken his defense, and so this statement was another example of protecting himself. In fact, this command illustrates his free will even further because none of the supernatural had anything to do with it, showing that the decision was made completely by free will. However, some may say that these examples of removing his enemies were a result of the fated desires of the supernatural, such as when Macbeth said “Hear (the bell) not, Duncan, for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell”

Fate is one person's destiny, it cannot be understood by mere mortals but a greater power beyond human comprehension. Fate is so powerful that it controls a person's outcome on life before it happens. Many people become victims of fate in which they catch a glimpse of what their future is going to look like, but do not totally grasp the outcome. Macbeth cannot fully comprehend the possible outcome of his fate because he is mortal, and therefore is a victim to his power driven quest and his ultimate fate. Many have been said to agree with this statement. For example, as stated in Shakespeare A to Z, "The Witches are an enactment of the irrational. The supernatural world if terrifying because it is beyond human control, and in the play it is

In Shakespeare’s Tragedy Macbeth, it is very debatable if fate, or freewill is what causes Macbeth to do the things he does through out the tragedy. Freewill is at work most through out the tragedy because Macbeth is convinced he can change or speed up the fate the three weird sisters prophesized for him at his own will. Throughout the play, Macbeth slowly begins to think he can modify his fate by using the prophecies told to Macbeth by the weird sisters and attempting to change them by his free will.

In the play Macbeth, we see an innocent man who is also recognized as a great warrior and hero, till the witches appeared and we begin to see changes in his behavior. When the witches’ prophecies comes true, you begin to wonder, was it the witches’ doing in causing Macbeth’s downfall or was it Macbeth’s own choice that he made himself? Macbeth shows a few signs of it being him that’s making those decisions. In the five acts we see a transition between fate and free will and both seem to act on each other throughout the play.

Within the play, Macbeth is influenced by many: the witches; his wife, Lady Macbeth; possibly Hecate, Goddess of the Underworld; and his own desire to be crowned king. The question is: was he just influenced by them, and acted upon his own choice and free-will; or did they control him, forcing him to act against his wishes against his free will?

freewill is refined by Macbeth killing macduff’s family. Macbeth had been already suspicious about Macduff but when Macduff fled to England out of nowhere made Macbeth more suspicious. On page 39 Macbeth says, “The very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand.” Meaning whenever he thinks or plan something he is going to do it. He is blaming himself about macduff fleeing to England and him not acting sooner trying to kill Macduff. On page 53 lady Macbeth kills herself. All the dirt they did was getting to her, she was feeling guilty. Macbeth had no emotion about his wife being dead, he responsed saying “she should’ve died hereafter” meaning she should’ve died after all this war went on. This connects to manipulating forces within relationship because if it wasn’t for lady Macbeth bullying Macbeth in the beginning of the play, maybe he would’ve still been noble and a good solider. At the end of the play Macbeth goes to war and he dies. He was killed by Macduff, this connects to fate vs. freewill because he went through all this trouble murders after murders just to remain king because thought it was his

Even if he was fated to become king, he made the decision to murder Duncan to obtain that fate. Macbeth walked down fate’s path and chose which fork in the road he would follow. Macbeth even admits that he could leave his kingship up to fate, stating that “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me without my stir.” (I, iii, 47-48) Macbeth is aware of the fact that if his destiny is determined, he does not need to take any action at all for it to come true.

Yet after his encounter with the witches, his mind was going back and forth trying to figure out how he should act upon the prophecy of becoming king! It was by then that the idea of fate had been planted into his head, and with such good title to come with it, why wouldn’t he want to believe his ‘fate’? Something that I found very interesting about the witches was that looking closely at line 24-25 when one of the witches says, "Though his bark cannot be lost, yet it shall be tempest-tossed." From what I seemed to understand, these lines seemed to really show the limitations to the witches’ powers, because they were basically saying that they could only make life rough for the clueless captain, but they could not kill him. I think that this is really important to all the people who thought that the witches had ‘written out’ Macbeth’s fate because in the same way as the previous stated scene they can tempt Macbeth with predictions about his future, but they cannot make him choose evil. Meaning that in this scene, one of the conflicts is obviously fate vs. free will! All the witches really did was find a way of stirring up evil, by tempting Macbeth into choosing to opt for evil instead of good. “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir.” (Act 1. Scene iii. Line 10). Here, Macbeth seems content to leave his future to "chance." If "chance" will have