THE PROTAGONIST

Macbeth is a tragic hero: at the beginning of the play he shows his courage and his loyalty to the king; he is presented as a noble and good-natured man, but when tempted he soon 'falls' and, driven by his great ambition, commits crime after crime, transforming himself from hero into villain. However, when he becomes a villain, he is not merely a cold-blooded murderer: he is greatly troubled by his conscience. The feeling of guilt poisons his life; after the first crime, he continues to murder those who were once his friends, but who are seen now as his enemies. He kills to maintain his power, but never enjoys his position and becomes afraid and suspicious of everybody. He begins to hate himself as life has lost all meaning for him; through his crimes he has lost all his previous values of love, loyalty and justice and even loses his wife. In the final part of the play he defines life as:

'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

signifying nothing'.