Seven Deadly Sins and Macbeth

Seven Deadly Sins: Macbeth

Macbeth is a tragedy which William Shakespeare empathize the good and the bad side of the human soul. King James was very influential to the Church of England and it´s possible that William Shakespeare wanted to impress the king with his play, Macbeth. “Shakespeare has used the play, Macbeth, to showcase the destructive nature of the Seven Deadly Sins”. Each of this sins are reflected in the actions on the three main characters, Macbeth is clearly invaded with pride, anger, and envy. His wife, Lady Macbeth is full of pride and greed, and the king, Duncan committed gluttony and laziness. The deadly sins supplement a play full of drama that makes the human get into a world of intrigue and betrayal.

Macbeth is probably the character that demonstrates the most the seven deadly sins. The first sin is pride, Macbeth kills Duncan in order to become king making reality the witches prophesy. “All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter! “ (1.3.52).Macbeth doesn’t obey the commandments of God, and committed the sin most difficult to forgive, kill a person. He doesn’t respect the law; he is guided by his pride. Then Macbeth shows that he is full of envy when he asked to kill Banquo and his successor Fleance. He hired two murders, because he knew what future was expected for Banquos´s son, and Macbeth didn’t have any kids that could inherit the throne. “Thou art the best o' th' cutthroats: Yet he’s good that did the like for Fleance. If thou didst it, thou art the nonpareil.” (3.4.20). These sins were enough to demonstrate the destructive nature of the seven deadly sins, which led to the Macbeth death. Macbeth´s wife whether she was influenced by the witches or not, also is negatively affected by the sins in her life.

Lady Macbeth was a very influential character for Macbeth; she manipulates her husband and committed some of the seven deadly sins. After Lady Macbeth reads the letter from her husband, her mind is invaded with ambition and greed. She makes the impossible to get to the throne, no matter what their closest friends offers to her. Also she plays with Macbeth´s mind, she refers to him as a coward just for convince him to kill Duncan. The greed definitely took control over Lady Macbeth.” What beast was’t, then, That made you breaks this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man “ ( 1.7.47) During all of the plan to kill Duncan, the anger is a sin that prevails in Lady Macbeth desire. Lady Macbeth cares a little for life, only his anger against the king grows each time more and more, and her obsession to kill the king led her to keep going with the plan until the end, she even said she would kill him if her dad didn’t look like him. “He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done ’t.” (2.2.12) . All of her black desires and obsessions drove her crazy, she was full of karma that she starts sleepwalking and all of her plans end up in a suicide. Some of the actions by Duncan gave Lady Macbeth the opportunity to not question her desire and bring her security to never give up with her plan.

Although Duncan was a noble King and very well respected by everyone, he committed two of the seven deadly sins that played an influence for his murder, Macbeth, to done the action. Once the dinner with Macbeth was over, Duncan was in a state of drunkenness, this situation could give Macbeth confidence to go ahead with the plan of killing him. The gluttony comes with another of the seven deadly sins, the laziness. The King shows a state of laziness, in the way that he trusts his guards so much. If he wouldn’t be so drunk, or if he would be able to take more responsibility of himself, the situation could be different.

The three main characters, specially the couple, let themselves guide their ambition in the whole play. They went against all the rules of the nature and broke it with their actions full of sins. Macbeth after all demonstrated that is a weak man and very vulnerable for his wife. His pride and envy dominated his life, leaving him out of this world, and out of the people memories, because at the end his reputation lost all the value. The same situation happened with Lady Macbeth, whom created herself as an evil and becomes crazy cutting her existence for ever. Any of these actions end up with a good result. That’s why is very important for us as human being practice the commandments of God , and trying to not fall into the seven deadly sins.