What moral lesson does Macbeth teach its students?

Answer 1

It teaches morals such as loyalty and honour, 'what goes around comes around', not to trust evil sources who promise happiness through evil, and..... hmmm..... we can also learn more about the time setting.

eg. emphasis on supernatural and witches

eg. significance of the raven that croaks hoarse upon the fatal entrance of Duncan

Also, don't blindly trust others!

eg. Banquo's trust in Macbeth

eg. King's trust in Macbeth

eg. Macbeth's trust in witches

Answer 2

Unfortunately for you and your teacher, plays are not sermons (not good ones, anyway). They are like life. You can take moral lessons from the things that go on around you and people always do, but that does not mean that life is designed as a way to teach you moral lessons.

The moral lessons you take from a play like Hamlet depend a lot on what moral questions are going on in your mind. What the characters say and do may give you moral insight to your problems, whether they say or do the wrong things or the right ones. Worrying about how you should advise your sister about his love life? Laertes's situation might help. Worrying about what your son is going to get up to when he is away at college? You might realize from Polonius's behaviour that it's as well to leave well alone. Pondering about whether to obey authority? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern did, and look what it got them. Wondering whether the end justifies the means? Hamlet certainly thought so. So did Polonius. And Claudius.

A lot of the "moral lesson" scam in the high school Shakespeare context is bound up with a number of dodgy concepts. First, the idea is that characters do not grow and change as the play goes on, but have a fixed and immutable character. Second, in order for this to be a tragedy, the main character has to have a single character flaw that we can all feel smug about not having. Third, the nature of this flaw provides a Sunday School lesson for all of us. If we identify this flaw as some moral defect, then we can say that there is a moral lesson not to be ambitious or proud or jealous or profligate as the case may be.

Unfortunately this is not how Shakespeare wrote his plays. His characters are not immutable. Their "flaws" might in other circumstances be virtues and in any case the characters do not display them consistently. Finally, like real life, the moral lessons to be taken from what happens are not simple-minded and unambiguous but complex and dependent on perspective.

Answer 3

I personally love it! I think the lesson is that you shouldn't marry someone so fast after they die because it may lead to your children going mad ect. JK I don't think there is a moral but it is just an entertaining tragic comedy. Sorry if that doesn't answer your question. :-)

Edit 09/23/09 by another user
i think the moral lesson is there is nothing good that can be gain from revenge.

Answer 4

The end doesn't justify the means and What goes around comes around were two morals of the Shakespearean play 'Macbeth'. Macbeth [c. 1014-August 15, 1057] felt that the kingship of Scotland was his due to supernatural predictions of a royal future for him. But the reigning King, Duncan I [d. August 14, 1040], thwarted those royal plans by naming his own son, the future King Malcolm III [d. November 13, 1093], as his immediate successor. Macbeth decided to become King by disrespecting the legally defined succession, killing King Duncan, and claiming the Scottish throne for him and his Lady [b. c. 1015]. So Macbeth chose illegal means to reach a royal end. The way in which dreams are realized needs to be sought without disrespect for others and for the law.

But Macbeth's murderous choice came back to haunt him. He committed the heinous act of killing Duncan, who came to Inverness Castle as king, guest, cousin, and benefactor. Macbeth therefore was Duncan's subject, host, cousin, and beneficiary. But he didn't show respect or hospitality. Instead, he carried out a murderous plan that later came back to be carried out against him by the end of the play. What one gives out to the world, one gets back.

Just a side note: the Shakespearean MacBeth differs greatly from the historical MacBeth who was legally elected to the office of king.

Answer 5

Macbeth is a play, not a sermon. It doesn't teach moral lessons. The play is meant to entertain; what happens, happens; the only moral lessons are the ones you want to find in the story. If you are afraid of witches, you can find the moral that witches are bad. If you think they are silly, you can find the moral that you shouldn't pay attention to them. If you think that leaders should be succeeded by their sons, and not their cousins, then the moral is that cousins of kings shouldn't have ambitions to be king. If you are a mysogynist, you can draw the moral that women will get you into trouble if you listen to them. If you are a feminist, you can draw the moral that forcing Lady Macbeth to act through her husband was the cause of the trouble. If you are a monarchist, you can draw the moral that killing a monarch leads inevitably to chaos; if you are more of a democrat, you can draw the moral that concentrating power in the hands of one man results in people killing each other.

Answer 6

Macbeth learns that impulses and desires are ultimately the downfall of society depending upon the manner in which they are obtained. Due to Macbeth's personal greed, Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff's family are murdered. Macbeth also loses his wife, and later, his own life. The loss of his wife, particularly, shows Macbeth that life is a pointless path to death.

...TLR

Answer 7

dont tell lies dont be deceived have confidece in yourself