Macbeth Assignment #3 - It's Tragic! - Hamartia

          Hamartia is defined as the “fatal flaw” of a tragedy’s hero, which leads to the character’s downfall.  The word is of Greek origin, coming from the word “hamartanein”, whose original and literal definition is “to miss the mark”, but now is more commonly translated as “to fail one’s purpose” or “to error or sin”. If we look at the character of Macbeth superficially and on the surface, it is quite easy to come to the conclusion that his hamartia is his ambition for power. However, this is quite a myopic point of view. If we look deeper and consider other factors and influences such as the three Witches’ prophecy and Lady Macbeth’s constant domineer, Macbeth’s hamartia seems to be that he is easily corrupted by the prospect of power. If the Witches did not deliver their prophecy with the promise of him becoming king of Scotland and Lady Macbeth did not convince him to kill Duncan, our group highly doubts that Macbeth would have gone through with the deed himself and that his entire downfall would have occurred.  Because Macbeth’s hamartia is in fact, how he is easily corrupted by the promise of power, he is unable to listen to his conscience (which is present when he has his inner conflicts), he is dragged into Lady Macbeth’s plan to kill Duncan. The first two parts of the prophecy were fulfilled without Macbeth acting out of the ordinary; it was because he was influenced by his wife that he decided to take the shortcut by killing Duncan himself. Thus, this proves that his hamartia, or fatal flaw, is not ambition, but rather being easily corrupted by the promise of power.

http://english.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hamartia

http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/LTHamartia.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hamartia