Good Example Of Essay On Dynamic Characters In Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Many characters in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth change as the play progresses due to external influences and intrinsic human qualities. Macbeth conveys such dynamism in a far more disparate fashion that his wife. Lady Macbeth can arguably be perceived as a static character because of her unwavering conviction that Duncan must die. However, she also exhibits dynamism when she increasingly regrets her nefarious plotting. Prior to conversing with the witches, Macbeth is a beloved, brave, and loyal statesman who later transforms into a selfish, jealous, and tragic hero who evinces unapologetic hubris. Lady Macbeth appears unwilling to change, which causes her madness and eventual suicide.
Macbeth, the protagonist of Shakespeare’s seminal play Macbeth, is a poignant example of a dynamic character. At the outset of the play, Macbeth is portrayed as a brave military commander who embodies honor and exhibits a heightened sense of moral obligation and duty to serve his country. He engaged in battles for utilitarian reasons. The narrator opines that “so foul and fair a day I have not seen.” These human characteristics, however, cultivate his agony over whether he should murder King Duncan, his cousin, at the behest of his nefarious wife. At the apex of the play, Macbeth conveys his paranoia and guilt, which signifies a change in his personality which undergird his actions. In his conversation with the witches, Macbeth brags that he will soon become the “thane of Cawdor,” which prompts him to subsequently tell Lady Macbeth that King Duncan stood in his way at the throne. At the conclusion of the tragic play, Macbeth is limned as a tyrant who opines about how his life lacks meaning, as Lady Macbeth convinced him to commit regicide, which psychologically traumatizes him for the rest of his life. In order to preserve his political position, he unapologetically murders his subjects, including the Macduff family, Banquo, and Young Siward. Macbeth clearly grapples with an internal conflict between his innate sense of right and wrong with his desire to become king in order to appease the sinister nature exhibited by Lady Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth also evinces dynamism because she transforms from an evil, plotting character to one who becomes regretful of her past actions. Her ambition and manipulative tactics undergird her actions. Lady Macbeth attacks the manhood of her husband at the outset of the play when she asserts: “What beast wasn’t then, When you durst do it then you were a man.” She does so in order to convince her husband to murder the king in order for him to usurp power and take control of the kingdom. She states that “the raven himself is hoarse and croaks the fatal entrance of King Duncan,” which conveys her intention to kill Duncan before he left her abode. Lady Macbeth then conjures evil spirits in orde to “stop up the access and passage to remorse.” Thus, she initially appears as a cold-blooded, cruel, and determined woman who transgressed her gender in order to procure political power in a society that disempowered and looked down upon women. By the end of the play, however, she conveys a heightened sense of anxiety and remorse over her manipulation of her husband for their own self-interests.
It is unequivocal that Shakespeare portrayed dynamic characters to underscore the underbelly of human actions ad human behavior. Rather than depicting static, two dimensional characters, the playwright forces his characters to confront conflict that results in profound personality changes in the characters. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are dynamic characters who change throughout the course of the play due to external influences and the luring attraction that political power has over the human mind.