Tragic Flaw Macbeth has been termed as a tragedy of ambition by many.

To others it is a tragedy of character, and even of will to yet others, it is a tragedy of vividness of imagination and even of fear. Verity wrote about Macbeth as follows, All that a great work of art means and teaches can seldom, if ever be crystallized in a phrase; nor is Macbeth an exception to the principle, though it is the least complex of Shakespeares tragedies and is indeed marked by sheer simplicity of theme, motive and treatment, which consorts with the simple, unsophisticated period of the events. Tragedy is based upon three eternal verities of life. Firstly, it deals with the fundamental dignity of man which is inherent in his moral and spiritual worth. He is neither mean nor contemptible. Secondly, the protagonist possess freedom of will and power to select of action, he exhibits all the inborn nobility of his character. Thirdly, the final impression tragedy leaves on audience of readers mind is that man with all his moral and spiritual forces with all his initiative and free will lives under a mysterious power which determines the trend and the final issue of his action. Macbeth is an epitome of selfish ambition. His passion is to acquire what is not deservedly his. It is thus an unqualified, misplaced passion. Ambition is a sane, healthy attribute. It is the main source of mans inspiration. But when this ambition becomes inordinate and grossly undeserved then it becomes tragic and even repulsive. To some lady Macbeth is a symbol of selfless ambition for she seeks nothing for herself. It is because of this that her ambition is more destructive. In both Macbeth and lady-Macbeth, this inordinate ambition leads to the ruin of a nature not incapable of better things. Both of them are human and sane. There is nothing devilish in them. They would not be tragic and the play not a tragedy if they were in fact fiendish. Their fall and their subsequent death does bring in us a feeling of sympathy and even pity for the two. Macbeths ambition superimposed as it is with his inherently weak traits leads to his down fall. He is superstitious has weakness of will and lacks moral courage. He is even suspicious of his wife from whom he hides the plan to kill Banquo, Macbeth thus is a play of inordinate ambition. Yet that is only a part of its entire nature. The play is about fear, lack of will and moral courage. It is also about fate and chance. In Macbeth, Shakespeare manages to free himself of his earlier involvement in tragic plays. Villainy is defeated irrevocably and the mind is free of the riddles of moral issues. He sends us a strong message; that villainy is part of our lives as is goodness. He also conveys that in the classical tragedies of Greece and Rome. In Greece, tragedy meant the goat-song It acquired this name because the sacrifice of a goat was a part of the ceremony. Tragedy, in spite of the satiric element, always retained the seriousness and

pathos of its religious connection with God who had suffered many things. Thus Greek tragedy originated from the religious worship of Greece. In tragedy, Rome faithfully followed Greece like a vast, but often dim and distorted shadow. Three great artist Ennius, Pacuvius and Accius won great acclaim in their own day. They seemed to have added to their Greek models as Roman Virility, dignity and energy. For the modern world, tragedy is again a play but the unhappy ending is now essential. It is not considered any narrative but the stress is laid on dramatic touches. In other words, the modern tragedy is not counterpart of the ancient tragedy. For exEuripidess play Iphigenia in Tauris is not a tragedy. It ends happily. It is for us a romantic drama as The winters Tale or The Tempest. Tragedy as the imitation of an action that is serious and also as having magnitude, complete in itself such a man is exhibited as suffering a change in fortune from happiness to misery because of a mistaken act due to his Hamartia that is his tragic flaw or tragic error in judgment. The plot of tragedy has three characteristics, according to Aristotle. It must be of a certain structure. Finally, the most important thing is that it is the soul of drama. Aristotle says that in a tragedy, the characters must be or a grand scale. The hero must not be commonplace and he must not be bad in character. If he were, we should only feel pleased at his down fall. He must be a man of considerable nobility of temper and yet with those human flaws and imperfections which so often prove a mans ruin. During the course of the 18th century the view of tragedy changed. The realistic vogue gripped the theatres of Europe. The audiences were not in favor of false exploitation of the princes in tragic plots. The realistic rationalists of the 18th century also sacrificed remoteness. It is very essential to secure the full impact of the tragic mood which can be achieved by a distance in time or place between ourselves and the figures created by the poet. In the 19th century tragedy almost monopolized the activities of the major poets who were entirely romantic and imaginative. It was very difficult to stage them. In the present world attempts are made for writing tragedies. To the Greeks Fate or Chance was the dominating factor to the modern world the power of society is overwhelming. Consequently a tragedy of today can be wrought out of the conflict between a single human being and his environments. The great modern tragic artist is John Galsworthy. His heros and heroines have not the sublimity, elevation and grandeur as we find in Shakespeares tragedy. They dont raise us to convulsions, crisis, sorrows, collisions, conflicts and pleasurable reliefs. There is also sense of waste as in Macbeth and Hamlet. His tragedies aim at stressing the sense of waste in life. In the poetics the function of tragedy is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear, and in this way to effect the catharsis of these emotions. The Greek word catharsis has three meanings. It means Purgation, Purification and Clarification and each critic has used the word in one or the other of these

varied senses and has reached accordingly a different conclusion regarding the function and emotional effects of tragedy catharsis has been taken to be a medical metaphor, Purgation denoting a pathological effect on the body. In 1857, Jacob Bernays pointed out that Catharsis was a medical metaphor. The process has been linked to homeopathic treatment with the like and curing the like the rousing of pity and fear results in the Purgation of these emotions. The emotional effect of tragedy gives the aesthetic satisfaction. Tragic beauty is a kind of the sublime. The end of tragedy shows that we do not feel that man is lowly, is dust and ashes, when confronted by the greatness of that which he opposes and by which he is crushed. He is defeated, but he remains great, sublime in his fall. The pleasure of tragedy is a pleasure that always accompanies over flowing life and intense activity. The tragic catharsis involves not only the idea of an emotional relief, but the further idea, of the purifying of the emotion, so, relieved. But it must be borne in mind that, the homeopathic cure of pity and year by similar emotions, is possible. Tragedy is serious and intensifies this mood, while comedy is frivolous light-hearted and dissolves in laughter. Tragedy occurs in a society where mans vision is being widened and aspirations exalted. Tragedies are partially considered the spectacles of evil. It is this practical consideration which brings about the superficial paradox of tragedy. Tragedy is a spectacle of evil. It is necessary to hold that tragedy is something more than a spectacle of evil. It must be the triumph of good over evil in the action itself. Tragedy represent absoluteness in values. It is never one-sided. It never one sided. It never falls in to error, common to optimism and pessimism. It never fails to see the resurrection implied in the fall and the fall implied in the resurrection. The choice of good by the tragic hero determines the nature of the evil in the play. The tragic trait in heros character indicates tragedys heroic grandeur and the dignity of man. The trait tragic is a fatal tendency which identifies the whole living with one interest, object passion and habit of mind. Tragedy is traditionally one of the most exalted of the forms. It has a compelling influence. The tragic vision implies the man of the action to fight against his destiny. The conflict between the hero magnitude. It appears to be not a matter of accident, a temporary and limited distruvance, but an essential change in the face of the universe. The whole of society is involved historically, literacy tragedy has always appeared at a mature period of culture, not at its beginning. The vision of tragedy is the outcome of the greatness, grandeur and magnificence of man. Terror is the basic characteristic of tragedy. It cannot extreme fear in the spectator or the reader. Terror is not to be confused with horror; it is something more universal. We may feel horror at some particular deed, like the doing to death of Macduffs wife and children in Macbeth---. But terror is more general, and is due to the recognition that man is a victim in some vast

scheme that he is caught in a net. Tragedy is an exploration of mans relations to the forces of evil in the world. The ideal tragic hero is one which excites pity and fear in no ordinary combination but these two emotions heightened to their utmost capacity under the conditions of the most perfect art. In hamlet, Othello, Lear, Macbeth we have the ruin of noble natures through some defect of character. In Macbeth one particular evil is stressed i.e. just for power. But as always in case of Shakespeare, he does not want to any rules, politics and doctrines for this evil in abstract and isolation. In Macbeth it is shown how just for power is able to influence a mans life both physically and spiritually. Shakespeare has gained a command over his technique and by short swift and subtle touches he is able to create an impression as in the famous lines in the beginning of the play: Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Macbeth is a tragic hero, a person of high rank who is brought to eventual ruin by a flaw in his character. Macbeths tragic flaw is his ambition, which leads him to a series of bloody and increasingly indefensible acts. The most apparent flaw, and perhaps the most tragic in Macbeths character, is his lack of patients and temperance. These shortcomings hunted Macbeth, causing him to let his overvaulting ambition rush fate, and hasten his doom. Macbeth could not wait for an appointment to a position of more power. Instead, he murdered the king to take his place. Opting not to wait to see if Banquo would be loyal to him. Macbeth had his companion murdered. His impatience led Macbeth to listen to his wife, the witches, and his darker side. He again informed people what a good man was not. In the end, Macbeth did regain a shred of his previous distinction when he faced his adversaries like a true warrior. Macbeths last words are those of a good man who faces his own problems. To Macduff he shouts his last words, before my body I throw my warlike shield lay on, Macduff, and damnd be him that first cries, Hold, enough! Like a bear, Macbeth regains his seat of honour, and becomes in his last breath, a good man. To proceed further, Macbeths superstitions and vivid imagination is also a primary contributor to his downfall. Macbeths belief in the weird sisters and their prophecies is perhaps the greatest flaw that leads to his demise. It is his option to take the withches words as having any substance. Macbeth can assume that the prophecies becoming reality is merely coincidental, but his superstition and curiosity in the weird sisters is the basis for all his actions after his first visit with the hideous hags. Glamis, and Thane of cowdor: the greatest is behind ---- Two truths are told --- upon hearing that the king has pronounced him. Thane of cowdor, Macbeth immediately finds that the witches were correct in their prophecy. This makes Macbeth wonder about the next prophecy and he ends up acting on his free will to make it come true. Macbeth is certainly ambitious, or at least he is once he hears the witches, prophecies. Shakespeare was content to follow the traditional formula of tragedy, giving his heroes a tragic

flaw. Shakespeare was a genius in creating characters who were not twodimensional heroes or villian. His characters were complex, multi-layered, with real psychological depth to them. At the beginning of the play Macbeth is no more ambitious than any other man. He is a brave military man, loyal to his king and country and honoured by them. Certainly he is started by the witches predictions, and confused by them and intrigued by their implications, enough to write of them to his wife. But is he who suggests killing Duncan, not him could it be that he at least initially, would have been content to wait until Duncan died naturally to see how the witches prediction would come about? Its possible. But he was influenced by his wife despite his own misgivings and fear to follow through and once that had happened his destiny was set in motion since each deed led to a new one. So perhaps his flaw, or one of them in addition to ambition, was being too easily influenced or perhaps cowardess or could it be excessive love of and passion for his wife; the willingness to give her what she so obviously wanted, and not wanting to look bad in he eyes. In Shakespeares Macbeth, Macbeth and his wife lady Macbeth are both examples of tragic heroes who possess a tragic flaw. According to websters dictionary a tragic flaw is defined as a flaw in character that brings about the downfall of the hero of a tragedy. Macbeth held within his character the flaw of ambition, as well as moral weakness and selective perception, which eventually contributed to his untimely death. In lady Macbeths case the main fault that brought about her destruction and final suicide was greed, alongwith an ignorance and repression of the emotions that contradicted this desire. Both character began in high positions and throughout the play, accumulated losses caused by their own weaknesses in personality. There is already evidence of Macbeths inborn ambition in the beginning of the play in the fact that he holds a high position as the Thane of Glamis and is an acclaimed general in the army. But further evidence of this trait comes in his reaction to the prophecies of the three witches. While many others would have avoided talking to witches for their obvious affiliation with evil, Macbeth hears what they have to say and responds with curiosity, saying, stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me. Macbeth was ultimately ambitious. But lady Macbeth was far more so. And it was she who encouraged Macbeth to begin the journey that ended in their deaths.