The protagonist of William Shakespeare's Macbeth changed a great deal throughout the play. The following paragraphs discuss Macbeth's development during the play along with how he contributed to the outcome of the play, in which he is killed.
At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is seen as a courageous soldier who is loyal to the king but is corrupted from the prophecies of three witches and by his ambition and greed to be king. Early in the play, Macbeth has some ambition to be king, but Lady Macbeth exceeds his ambition. Macbeth is very weak in character as opposed to his wife, Lady Macbeth who has strong power. Using her power for evil, Lady Macbeth eventually persuades Macbeth to kill the reigning king, Duncan. Duncan is a very wise and experienced ruler. .
At first, Lady Macbeth's power motivates Macbeth to kill, but eventually his ambition grows so great that he continues killing on his own. After the murder of Duncan Macbeth becomes paranoid and his first step, killing the guards is one of many that Macbeth takes to secure himself. Macbeth is also very superstitious and this is shown when he believes the prophecy the witches told him that Banquo's offspring would become kings. Throughout the play we see the character of Macbeth change not from just the way he thinks, but also from the actions he takes. Macbeth's further actions to secure him include his murder of Banquo, and ordering the murder of Lady Macduff and her children.
Towards the end of the play when Lady Macbeth has died and the battle is drawing closer, Macbeth shows what could have been. He wishes for a normal life in which he would have lived to an honorable age but he realizes that he has denied himself of this. Even when Macbeth hears that the prophecy has become true of Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane, he fights on until he realizes that Macduff was not born in a natural birth but instead was "untimely ripped" from his mother's womb.
