The characters in Macbeth are constantly changing the course of their society's history. Macbeth's killing King Duncan and taking the thrown of Scotland is a dramatic example of this idea of altering history. Macbeth’s one move had an impact on, at the least, every citizen of Scotland. It also appears that the witches are altering the history of society. While both Macbeth and the witches have similar impacts, it seems important to note that the witches alter history through fate while Macbeth’s changes are based on freewill. This idea of the alteration of history can be expanded to say that in a way, everyone is always changing the course of history with every decision that they face. A specific example of another character in Macbeth is Lady Macbeth. If Lady Macbeth had not persuaded and pushed Macbeth to take matters into his own hands and to "be a man", Macbeth may never have actually murdered Duncan.
A few of Machiavelli's principals are shown throughout Macbeth, specifically regarding the appearance of a leader and the honesty of a leader. When Shakespeare uses the quote "Your hand your tongue; look like the innocent flower/but be the serpent under't"(1.6.63-64) he was depicting Machiavelli's principle that a leader must always keep up a front and never appear to have faults. While Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are aware that this is necessary, they do not always follow this rule. An example of this would be when Macbeth showed his partial insanity at the banquet. When Macbeth began screaming at a person no one else could see, it caused his people to see a weakness in him that lessened their respect for him as a leader. Machiavelli’s principle regarding honesty in a leader is that the leader need not always be truthful. This concept is portrayed extensively in the rise of Macbeth. Macbeth has lied his way through the journey of becoming king; none of his accomplishments could have been met without the act of deceiving all of his followers and companions.
Major leaders in a society almost always impact the history of a society, whether for better or for worse. Joseph Stalin was incredibly evil and had a tremendously negative impact on our world today. His acts of violently murdering and starving millions of innocent civilians were devastating to our world; he, along with other leaders of his time, created distrust, turmoil, and extreme sadness to poison our society and did terrible things that can never be undone. On a happier note, Rosa Parks was a woman with minimal power who took a stand against the discrimination of black people and created a degree of hope. She first began her rebellion through refusing to give up a seat on a public bus to a white person. Parks is now a role model who is considered to be one the key people who created equality in the United States. These two leaders are people that almost every person in the United States is familiar with, and that is a result of their major impact on society.
Society plays a key role in the amount of power an individual can obtain. While this does not necessarily affect me directly, I have seen this played out in the laws of the United States that require, for certain political positions, that a person only maintain power for a set time period. It seems to me that this law is extremely necessary; one of the reasons that the United States has never had a dictatorship or other all powering government is that people can't maintain office long enough to gain that power. In ways such as these I would say that society has more power than individuals. This concept makes perfect sense to me; a person should never have more power than that of all the people they rule over or the power of the individual becomes almost limitless. It is when power becomes limitless like this, that tragedies and disasters occur.
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