Lord of the Flies & Macbeth Essay Example

becomes absolute with the flight of the two Princes, “What will you do? Let's not consort with them/ I'll to England. Macbeth abuse of power leads to the corruption of morals, and nobility. It leads him to murder his friends and Macduff’s family leaving him isolated although powerful, “O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife! ” Macbeth loses his sense of perspectives as a result of his avarice for power and subsequent abuse of it which leads to his death. This ultimately reinforces that when power is exercised negatively, abuse and greed will override and ultimately destroy. Lady Macbeth’s attitude towards power is somewhat similar to Macbeth’s but more cunning.

At the beginning of the play, when Lady Macbeth reads the letter from her husband telling her about the witches, it can be clearly be seen that she will be willing to risk anything to see Macbeth king. When Macbeth has his doubts, Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth when she call upon “... spirits/That tend on mortal thoughts... ” to “Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse/That to compunctious visitings of nature/Shake my fell purpose... ” . Lady Macbeth’s sole purpose for murder seems to prove that she has been successful in her ambitions of power.

Her involvement in the Kings murder portrays her lack of morals and feminimity as is the catalyst that later drives her insane, “Out, out damn spot”. Lady Macbeth’s state of mind is revealed through her monologues allowing the readers to understand the horror of her ultimate insanity. This represents how both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth abuse power so that it ultimately corrupts and destroys. Through

these characters , it can be seen that power corrupts. Power is something that if placed in the wrong hands, can destroy.

The greed for power can make people do outrageous things, and once wrongly used and abused it can disrupt the sort order that power is supposed to hold within the society. Power changes people and it is mostly for the worst, but that this isn’t true in all cases. Comparing and Contrasting Macbeth by Shakespeare and Lord of the Flies by William Golding have parallel ideas about good and evil. Both the Lord of the Flies as well as Macbeth have a similar theme - that ultimate power corrupts absolutely. In Golding's novel, the boys, who are innocent upon their arrival on the island, become evil because there is no one there to stop them.

Jack and his gang soon learn this and use fear and terror to control the others. Shakespeare also depicts an innocent and brave soldier in Macbeth at the beginning of the play. However, his ambition gets the best of him and he becomes a tyrannical leader. Both texts also rely heavily upon pathetic fallacy as a technique to highlight the characters' inner turmoil or savagery. Pathetic fallacy is when events in nature mirror the characters' inner conflicts. For example, when Macbeth is about the Kill King Duncan, there are all kinds of strange occurrences in nature such as thunder, lightning, and cannibalistic horses.

In "The Lord of the Flies" there's a violent storm out when the boys "accidentally" kill Simon on the beach during one of their primal ritual dances. Both of these texts represents life

on two levels, the reality we would expect to see and the unrealities that are engendered by power. Macbeth acts on his subversive, cunning attitude towards power while Jack relies on physical power to dominate and control. Regardless of how the power is obtained, if it is used negatively, it will corrupt. Although both are written in different contexts, both revealed that abuse, greed and corruption are the definitive results of negative use of power.