"Macbeth" Character Analysis

Macbeth, the main character in the Shakespeare play with the same name, is a very complex and interesting character. Throughout the play Macbeth exposes his overwhelming thirst for power. Macbeth attains this power by a eliminating those who stand in his way. It is Macbeth's ever growing thirst for power that exposes him as a cruel hearted individual and ultimately causes his downfall. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is exposed as a coward. …

…the taste of fears./ The time has been my senses would have cooled / To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair / Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir / As life were in 't. I have supped full with horrors / Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts / Cannot once start me (5. 5. 9-15.). Macbeth's own self revelation about his change is the final stage in the development of his character before his ultimate downfall and demise.