Free Essays - Desire and Reason in Macbeth :: Macbeth essays

Desire and Reason in Macbeth In the play Macbeth the word desire occurs 7 times and the word reason occurs 5 times. These words have an important correlation and are a main theme in the play. Although the meaning of these words does not vary much at all in this play, their impact on the play is in the words surrounding them, and their place in the development of the plot. The first time desire shows up in the play is when Lady Macbeth is speaking in her first soliloquy and says, "I burned in desire to question them further". In which she was referring to the prophecy of which was revealed to her, and triggers the plot against Duncan, and her "reason" for her early lust to power. The second time she mentions desire she says, "Where our Desire is got without content". With the surrounding text she is saying that if your desires are obtained without happiness then all is lost. In two of the times Lady Macbeth uses desire it is in referral to Macbeth being king. The other time she uses it is persuading h im to kill Duncan, when she questions his desire and strength to obtain them. Macduff uses desire much less passionately than Lady Macbeth mostly he uses it to describe and emotion of wanting something, it is very much completely is context without literary impact of the word itself. The most significant time he uses it is before Duncan was discovered to be dead he says, "it provokes the desire, but takes away the performance". He was speaking about alcohol and provoking the desire for sex but taking away the ability to have it. This is not different from Macbeth envisioning the dagger that seems just out of reach. Later too he nearly backs out of the plot against Duncan, which is when Lady Macbeth says that she would bash her child's brains in if she had said she would; confronting Macbeth about his passive approach to desire. In the same speech in which she is convincing Macbeth to follow through with the murder reason is used in an extremely clever part of the play.