Evil Defined in Macbeth and Beowulf
...g in the Pre-Christian time. As Christian was introduced, a new definition of evil that concentrated on human values and thoughts had emerged. The Christian deadly sins were the cause of evil. Thus in the play Macbeth, Macbeth's tragic flaws were actually the deadly sins. They were greedy and envy. Macbeth was not satisfied with his current position, "Thane of Glamis," and not even his newly gained "Thane of Cawdor" would please him. He had only one thing on his mind, the throne. When he became the king, he envied Banquo's having heirs who would be rivals for the throne. The Christian also developed the theory of the great chain of being. It basically stated that a person could not and was not allowed to change his social status. Thus in the play, everyone eventually turned against Macbeth, who had broken the great chain of being by taking the throne from the rightful king. At the end, Macbeth died as an evil being who had broken all the Christian rules. The nature of evil also became unclear as it got more complex. In Macbeth, the play began with the three witches' meeting. To a first-time reader, it would appear that these "weird sister" were the evil ones, because it was a common human perception. Who could be more evil than a witch who vowed to punish a sailor only because his wife cursed her and refused to give her some chestnuts. As the play continued, one might become skeptical about the wi...