Evil in Macbeth

Pages:60-62
J. N. Sharma (Department of English, Gaur Brahman Degree College, Mahrishi Dayanand University, Rohtak)

Set in the eleventh-century Scotland, Macbeth is a tragic play that explores the nature of evil through five elements- setting, plot, conflict, characterization, and theme. G. Wilson Knight describes Macbeth as Shakespeare’s “most profound and mature vision of evil.” The learned critic feels that the nature of evil in Macbeth is elusive and the fear it evokes is that of nightmare. Therefore, the experience of evil is something at once insubstantial and unreal to the understanding. He also argues that in the play we are left with an over-powering knowledge of suffocating, conquering evil, and fixed by a nameless terror.