Circular And Free Will In Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'
Time Is Circular and Free Will Is Debatable In the best kinds of movies and books, such as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban or Westworlds, events and people are altered by time. As the film progresses, you find more evidence of how time is warped and that the reason why that wolf howled was because through time travel the main character made it happen, or that certain characters are stuck in time loops, doomed to do the same things forever. The continuous warping of time is popular in today’s media, especially when used to prove a major point about the plot or make statement about the characters. Although this idea seems new, it can be followed all the way back to the beginning of the 17th century, when William Shakespeare wrote one
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When they meet Macbeth and his good friend Banquo, they greet him by addressing his present and future titles: “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” (1.3.51-53) At this point, Macbeth is already Thane of Glamis, but the current Thane of Cawdor is perfectly alive and the king’s position of power seems stable. It is not until the witches say that Macbeth will be king that starts to plot murder: “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings. My thought, whose murder yet is fanrastical, shakes so my single state of man that function is smothered in surmise, and nothing is but what is not.” (1.3.150-55) and even then he is very shocked that it even crossed his mind. At this point, he is very against doing anything to alter the current state of royalty, and decides for things to “Come what may, time and hour runs through the roughest day” (1.4.163-64) and that “chance may crown me without my stir” (1.4.156-59). It is not until it is announced that the current Thane of Cawdor died in battle and that Macbeth is now the Thane of Cawdor, does Macbeth realize that jumping through succession into kinghood through murder is the best way to
When they meet Macbeth and his good friend Banquo, they greet him by addressing his present and future titles: “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” (1.3.51-53) At this point, Macbeth is already Thane of Glamis, but the current Thane of Cawdor is perfectly alive and the king’s position of power seems stable. It is not until the witches say that Macbeth will be king that starts to plot murder: “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings. My thought, whose murder yet is fanrastical, shakes so my single state of man that function is smothered in surmise, and nothing is but what is not.” (1.3.150-55) and even then he is very shocked that it even crossed his mind. At this point, he is very against doing anything to alter the current state of royalty, and decides for things to “Come what may, time and hour runs through the roughest day” (1.4.163-64) and that “chance may crown me without my stir” (1.4.156-59). It is not until it is announced that the current Thane of Cawdor died in battle and that Macbeth is now the Thane of Cawdor, does Macbeth realize that jumping through succession into kinghood through murder is the best way to