Macbeth: Tragic Flaw or Fate?

[Eva Marina]

Ok, so my English teacher gave us this topic to write an essay on and I thought, "Hey, that would be a neat topic to discuss!" So, in your opinion, is Macbeth just fate's "play-thing" or is he in the possession of some tragic flaw?

[Virgil]

Both. They are not mutually exclusive. Fate uses his tragic flaw for his demise. You can take it from here. Let me know how you did in class.

[RobinHood3000]

The prevailing opinion, I believe, is that fate and predestination rubbed Shakespeare the wrong way, at least in part from Puritan influence, so I would suspect that his tragic flaw and willingness to believe in fate play the major role in his downfall.

[Eva Marina]

I'm tending to think that it is the tragic flaw of Macbeth that caused his downfall, especially with what you said about Shakespeare's aversion to it, RobinHood. I'm not sure if I remember correctly, there might have been something in Romeo and Juliet about the stars or something that also brings to mind the same line of thinking. Hmm...now, if I could only remember what that line was....

[W. Spearshaker]

I don't know if fate was really even involved in Macbeth... I mean, the prophecies are self fulfilling. You hear your friend is going to die, so you go to hire a doctor to do a checkup, and while you're gone, he falls and breaks his neck.... If you were there...... Besides, the tragic flaw is easier to write a paper on, because it's such a standard topic. Ambition is generally the flaw considered in Macbeth, although you could argue all sorts of other ones. It's the mistake that leads to his downfall... so you could argue at the height of his success he was King, and his flaw was not being ambitious, (before his first murder), but not being cold-hearted enough to carry out the full weight of his authority. Look at Napoleon in "Animal Farm" by Orwell, his successful dictatorship was completely emotionless and calculated, whereas Macbeth was plagued by his conscience. But I digress...

[W. Spearshaker]

I believe the line was "star-crossed lovers", or some such. It's been awhile.

[The Unnamable]

Doesn’t the formulaic and tired nature of the original question sadden anyone here? Is Shakespeare to be reduced to nothing more than a set of drearily stock questions in search of equally stock, equally dreary answers? Why not ask some different questions – even when answering the same old questions? Why not, for example, consider the possibility that part of his downfall was caused by the impossible position he is put in by an inherently contradictory social system? When Duncan is told in Act 1 scene 2 that Macbeth had “unseam'd” someone “from the nave to the chaps,/And fix'd his head upon our battlements”, his reaction is, “O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!” Acts of violent butchery are worthy of celebration and reward. And they are, of course, if you are fighting a war. Ambition is a good thing if it’s in the service of the King but evil if it’s directed against him. That’s one of the ways the office maintains its power. But isn’t this a part of the dilemma we end up placing ourselves in when our systems of right and wrong, our beliefs about good and evil, serve the interests of those who want to maintain their positions? To speak of Macbeth’s ‘flaw’ is to assume that he alone is responsible, that there is no similar ‘flaw’ in the social structure in which such a man is forced to exist.

[djmyerhmgirl]

Yeah, it's pretty upsetting that essay topics are so boring. I think part of the reason they're all so stock is because they're so difficult for the half-wits to answer when no one else has done something similar that they can look up on the internet!!
I'd best not get started on English teachers and how they lack creativity. No doubt there are a couple of them roaming the messageboard =P