to do, the prophecy was fulfilled, and the only winner is Fate. This does not make a Tragedy. Who do we feel sorry for? Maybe only Macduff, who was untimely ripped from his mother's womb. We praise Macduff for conquering Macbeth. Maybe some readers feel some pity for Lady Macbeth. But we certainly don't feel pity for Macbeth. Yet Macbeth could have been a victim. He lost control of himself, and allowed himself to be led by Fate. Perhaps Shakespeare fails to supply a "tragic flaw" as insisted on by Aristotle. Macbeth does not try to resist Fate, he runs with it. He does not heed warnings of potential hazards. The Macbeth we were introduced to certainly could not have predicted his fortune. Being a man of honesty and humility, he couldn't have deserved his dilemma. But he succumbed to his fate, and was no longer an honest and humble Macbeth.I think that even the most humble and honest person in the world, except Jesus himself, could be swayed to corruption. The Macbeth Empire could be compared to Mark Twain's Hadleyburg. In comparing Macbeth to The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, we might be able to see Macbeth as a satirical comedy. Macbeth, honest and humble, was corrupted by the powers of fortune in much the same way that the people of Hadleyburg, also honest and humble, were corrupted by the same powers. The reader could not possibly pity the community of Hadleyburg, and would typically cheer at its fall. Isn't it the same with Macbeth? The townspeople of Hadleyburg felt remorseful when they realized they'd been had, in much the same way that Macbeth surely felt when he learned of Macduff's method of birth. The people of Hadleyburg thought that no harm could come to them, because they held proper character; they were in proper form. But behind closed doors they planned their strategies to acquire the power, provided in the form of a monetary inheritance. This greed/lust for power was the Hadleyburg downfall. Their own greed was their ...
