The Problem in Macbeth

THE PROBLEM IN 'MACBETH' We have already seen that the focus is on Macbeth and his wife, furthermore, we have seen that the crucial problem is the decision and the act, especially in which sense you can consciously and freely choose to do evil, then do it and then be faced with the consequences. The problem is old. Socrates maintained that no one with full insight in what was evil, would of his own free …

…matter from a more philosophic point of view, the unnature Macbeth creates consists in the thought becoming one with the action. It can be understood phychologically; his earlier attempt to continuously weigh the possibilities, to escape the dilemma by postponing it, was by the intervention of his wife interrupted in the hopeless action. Macbeth thinks to have learned from it: From this moment the firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand.