2005, Form B. One of the strongest human drives seems to be a desire for power. Write an essay in which you discuss how a character in a novel or a drama struggles to free himself or herself from the power of others or seeks to gain power over others. Be sure to demonstrate in your essay how the author uses this power struggle to enhance the meaning of the work.
The struggle for power is a central theme of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Lady Macbeth urges her husband to seize power and murder Duncan. Macbeth desperately defends his power by murdering his best friend. Ultimately though, the three witches are the only characters with any true power. Shakespeare portrays the struggle for power as brutal and bloody, but ultimately insignificant, as Fate is inescapable; the only real power in the world.
When Macbeth and Banquo first hear the witches’ prophecy, Macbeth is plagued with uncertainty. Does he really want to be king? Is he capable of cold blooded murder? It is Lady Macbeth that holds the power in their relationship, and it is she that urges Macbeth to seek more seize the king’s power. Shakespeare plays with gender roles by making Lady Macbeth yearn for masculinity, which she equates with power, yet it is the three witches, women, who ultimately control the play’s events.
As Macbeth struggles to understand the witches’ prophecy, he desperately clings to his newfound power by having his friend Banquo killed. The quest for power has driven Macbeth insane, and tortured by guilt. Even Lady Macbeth, who wishes her blood ran as cold as ice and that her mother’s milk would turn to bile, is driven to suicide by her tortured mind. By showing the gruesome ends of those who crave power, Shakespeare is noting the fact that tyrants do not often die in their beds, they die bloodily in the streets.
Throughout the play, it is not Macbeth, or Lady Macbeth, or the rebels who fight Macbeth that have any true power, it is only the witches. The three Fates. They pull the strings of the world, manipulating kings and peasants alike. Lady Macbeth’s best laid plans are no match for fate. This is one of Shakespeare’s central themes in Macbeth, that it is chaos that rules the world, not men.
Nice choice with Macbeth! I used this same open prompt for one of my essay and I wish I would have thought of using Macbeth instead. I liked the questions that you used in the first body paragraph because they were different from how you presented points in your other essays. Again, this essay seems short, but it gets the point across.
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