Macbeth Free Will Research Paper

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Pages: 4

Some people believe that their whole lives are already planned out by the hands of fate, but everyone has free will and makes their own choices that shape the path that their life takes. Fate implies that a person’s life has a predetermined course of events that will inevitably take place. These predetermined choices in one’s life are believed to be made by a higher power or entity. Free will, on the other hand, is the idea that all people have the ability to make and act on their own decisions, without the constraints or necessity of fate. Through analyzing the relationship between inevitable fate and free will, while the Witches’ prophecies may have provided a foundation for the narrative of Macbeth’s life, ultimately the choices he made by acting on his free will were responsible for the tragic outcome of his life. The …show more content…
Furthermore, Macbeth went out of his way to try and make the prophecies come true. He shed blood in an attempt to achieve his goals and make the prophecies unfold. Lady Macbeth plans to get Macbeth to kill King Duncan while he is asleep, she says, “When in swinish sleep/ Their drenchèd nature lies as in a death,/ What cannot you and I perform upon/ Th’ unguarded Duncan?” (1.7.77-80) They plan to kill Duncan to ensure that Macbeth’s prophecy of becoming king will absolutely come true. Macbeth ends up killing the king, this act leads to a chain of murders that were committed in the interest of his goals. Macbeth was willing to commit heinous crimes to achieve what he wanted. Macbeth also sends two murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance, he says to the murderers “And with him/ Fleance, his son, that keeps him company,/ Whose absence is no less material to me/ Than is his father’s, must embrace the fate/ Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart./ I’ll come to you anon.”