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Macbeth's Positive and Negative Traits

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Macbeth's Positive and Negative Traits
Often in works of literature, characters have a mixture of positive and negative traits. In the play “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, Mach has a mixture of positive character traits as well as character flaws. Macbeth has the positive trait of being a great leader; however he has the negative traits of being selfish and mental instability. There are many characteristics throughout the play that proves Macbeth has both positive and negative traits. Macbeth shows the trait of being a great leader. In scene one of Macbeth the Sargent says, “For brave Macbeth- well he deserves that name- Disdnining fortune, with his brandish’d steel, which smoked with bloody execution.” Macbeths was being recommended to be the new thane of cowdor. Macbeth’s great leadership on the battle field allowed him the opportunity to be the Thane of cowdor. Also when Macbeth hired murders to kill Banquo he used great leadership. This shows that Macbeth is a great leader because if he was not he would have needed the help of others to plan and take charge in the murder of Banquo. This is important because if Macbeth was not a great leader the plan would have failed and back fired. Macbeth’s great leadership helped win the battler during the war and also took role of making a “killer-plan”. Macbeth has the negative trait of being selfish. In the play Macbeth says,” Do you not hope your children shall be kings, when those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me promised no less to them.” Macbeth is showing readers that he does not care about anyone else becoming king, he just wants as much power as he can get. Macbeth is selfish because he does not care about the gain of others just himself. Also, when Macbeth killed Duncan it was for his own gain. This shows Macbeth is selfish because he already had a great amount of power, but decided to kill Duncan to receive more power. This is important because he went so far to gain power that he evened killed the leader of Scotland. Macbeth does not only kill the king of Scotland, he takes away the chances of his best friend kid of being king. Macbeth also contains the trait of being mental instability. In the play, Macbeth begins to hallucinate after killing Banquo. This shows that Macbeth is not mentally strong enough to kill someone and move on. This is important because Macbeth cannot live his ordinary life without seeing the ghost of Banquo somewhere. In play, Macbeths says,” Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep- the innocent sleep.” Macbeth is not able to sleep anymore because in his head he thinks he will be killed in his sleep like he didn’t to Duncan. Macbeth, mentally, thinks he can sleep no more since he is also sleeping in the bed Duncan once slept in. Macbeth is not able to live an ordinary life and loses the best part of the day, sleep, because of mental instability. In conclusion, Macbeth has a mixture of positive and negative traits. The positive traits of Macbeth are being a great leader. Macbeth’s two negative traits were being selfish and mental instability. In the play, Macbeth has many characteristics throughout the play the reveals he has both positive and negative traits.

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