“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. In Macbeth by William Shakespeare evil is portrayed in all of the characters at one point or another but it is left up to our assumption whether that person is “evil or good”. We can only do our best to figure out what that person truly is. Evil overlays most of the possible good in Macbeth. Macbeth is influenced by the ideas of possible power for good; but is distracted under the influence of his wife’s undying need for that same power.
Good is what we all start with and strive to keep every day, good is also the base that can allow for evil. “Our Duties are to your [the] throne and the state children and servants, which do but what they should by doing everything Safe toward your love and honor.” (Page 27. Act 1, Scene 4. Lines 28-30). Macbeth seems to be an honorable and truthful man with seemingly good intentions. He talks about the throne in such a positive light, almost as if he was naïve to any evils that are associated with power. Macbeth is introduced as a man with integrity and a strong basis for what would make up a “good” person so we want to draw a line in the sand saying that he is “good”. The problem is that good and bad are not on one side of a line they
weave together in a way where one thing is never clearly on either side. Goodness is measured by the situation you are in and how that decision affects you; an act of kindness to a poor man is an act of stupidity to a rich man; helping a blind man cross the street is an act of heroism helping another man cross the street with perfect vision is viewed as you deeming them incompetent. How can things that seem so inherently good ever be viewed as evil?
Lady Macbeth is a character filled with evil, but how can we make the distinction between what is a decision made by her for Macbeth or maybe one that he had formulated prior. “That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the top-full of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood. Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse, that no compunctions visiting of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th’ effect and it.”(Page 33. Act 1. Scene 5. Lines 48-52). Lady Macbeth wants the crown and the power she does not seem to care what comes after for the citizens. She seems to deem those people inferior and is only worried about her own power. It also seems as if Macbeth is merely a pawn in a large chess game and she will be willing to dispose of him whenever the time seems right. Her evil stems from a root of greed and is not just perceived as evil by everyone around her but she herself knows that it is evil. She wants to have everything and is willing to do whatever and use whomever she needs to get there. Is Macbeth that different from her? He was willing to take a human life of someone he would say is a colleague. What has the ability to drive someone with such good intentions to do such a bad thing? What separates a person who commits an act of evil from an evil person?
Macbeth is influenced very strongly by his wife’s opinions and standpoints on the leadership and the hierarchy’s of the time. The difference between Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth is the strong sense of remorse that Macbeth felt after committing his crimes. “Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit, and look on death itself, Up, Up, and see the great dooms image. Malcom, Banquo as your graves rise up and walk like sprites to countenance this horror.”(Page 67. Act 2. Scene 3. Lines 88-92). Macbeth sees hallucinations that are figment of his imagination and