Macbeth: a tragic hero.

"tragic hero: A privileged, exalted character of high repute, who, by virtue of a tragic flaw and fate, suffers a fall from glory into suffering."

Macbeth is definitely a tragic hero. We started out seeing him in a heroic light, brave and loyal to his King. There was no foreshadowing of the tragedy that would befall him, if you had only looked at his role in the very beginning. Macbeth's tragic flaw, which in my opinion, is the fact he's human, ( which lead him to the power struggle between the forces of good and evil), caused his downfall.I think the forces of evil are more dominant in our lives, only because they don't require dedication, and promise glory, although it may be tainted. The crown is at the bottom of a dark and narrow pit, and all you have to do is jump. You can always climb back up, can't you? Although I believe you can always redeem yourself when you sucumb to jumping, its never as easy as it looks, and not once in my sixteen years of life have I personally experienced a jump down that pit that was worth it. Its so much more difficult to make the choice to do good. We find the prize to be much more rewarding, having gained untainted glory, and the new traits of the journey we embark on as we struggle. We learn things, instead of falling endlessly down into darkness, collecting different sorts of traits-- traits that stick to our consciouses like leeches, and perhaps even drive us to insanity in extreme cases, like Lady Macbeth. Her husband unfortunately wasn't strong enough to resist the temptation; the suggestion of power. Even though the witches sent him apparitions fortelling of Macbeth's end, he denied them. He created an entirely new reality for himself, one in which he was in control of his fate now. He had the power, and he decided above all, that he would stay in power. With mortality comes greed and vanity. I'm not suggesting there aren't opposites for all terrible qualities, but being human makes it hard to resist temptation, hard to strive to be good, hard to keep from falling. Macbeth's tragic flaw, was the fact he was a man who wasn't strong enough in himself. Macbeth's tragic flaw was the fact he was a human being.