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Leadership in Macbeth

 

            The great visionary Cesar Chavez once said "We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community". A great leader must prioritize the needs of his own people ahead of his own. They must put aside what they want and strive to achieve what his loved ones want. When one does not do this they become over ambitious and selfish and hurt the ones they love. When Macbeth is told that he has been promoted to Thane of Cawdor, which is right after he hears a prophecy from the weird sisters saying that he is to gain this title ,and also become king, he says in an aside, "The prince of Cumberland! That is a step On which I must fall down or else o'erleap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see" (1.4.55-60). In order to find Macbeth's tragic flaw one must analyze this aside and wonder what it is that Macbeth's eye will fear.
             "The prince of Cumberland! That is a step On which I must fall down or else o'erleap, For in my way it lies" (1.4.55-56). The literal meaning of what he is saying in this first line is, the heir to the throne, I could give up now or step over Malcolm. This is where Macbeth's hamartia is exposed. He goes from the great leader everyone loves to a traitor. Macbeth suggests that he over step Malcolm, the heir to the throne, or somehow leaps over Malcolm and steals the throne from King Duncan. As a result of this the reader can assume he means murder for there is no way to .
             succeed the throne unless death occurs. Upon analyzing and performing a close read one can determine that Macbeth does in fact imply murder. He capitalizes the O in on showing its significance. The Oxford English Dictionary defines On as "to be above or in contact with". Macbeth says "that is a step On which I must fall down or else o'erleap".


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