The Tragedy and Despair of MacbethMacbeth is one of Shakespeare's best-known plays. It is commonly classified, with Hamlet, Othello and King Lear, among the four great tragedies of Shakespeare. After reading Macbeth, several significant aspects of the play come to mind: the central characters (Lady Macbeth and her husband) and their development, the treatment of gender issues, the nature and conflict of good and evil, the final triumph of the forces of order. goodness and life, and the disturbing implications of this triumph. One way to approach the main characters in the play is to see how they correspond to Aristotle's ideas about tragedy. The problem with this approach is that it doesn't fit Aristotle's ideas very well. Aristotle wrote that a tragic character should be more good than bad and that their downfall should be the result of an error or misstep (the likely meaning of Aristotle's term hamartia) rather than moral depravity . Lady Macbeth and her husband, on the other hand, are more evil than good, and they commit or deliberately arrange several horribly depraved acts: among others, the murder of King Duncan, the murder of Macbeth's friend Banquo, and the murder of Macduff's wife and children. . Their motivations are purely selfish: they want power and all the personal benefits it will bring. It doesn't seem like Aristotle's ideas work very well in Macbeth. But despite the fact that the play doesn't fit the ideal Aristotelian mold (and Shakespeare probably didn't intend it to, anyway), watching the play thus sheds some light on us. We must ask ourselves, “Is Macbeth purely evil?” Is his wife? » The closer I looked at the piece, the more convinced I became that its power comes from the middle of paper......things we commonly associate with women and children -- or Christ -- did not not received adequate attention. Macbeth shows us characters who have succumbed to despair: Lady Macbeth, who comes to believe that "what is done cannot be undone" (5.1.68), and Macbeth, who states that since "I am in the blood / Hitherto have I entered,” repentance is useless: “should I flounder no more, / The return was as tedious as leaving” (3.4.135-37). The play shows these characters defeated, but not redeemed. Works Cited Cooke, Patricia. “Macbeth: The Origin of Despair.” Online. November 20, 1996. SHAKSPER: World Shakespeare Electronics Conference. March 5, 2001.Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Literature: an introduction to fiction, poetry and drama. Ed. XJ Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999.