Essay on "Play 'Macbeth' and Film 'Luther"

Essay 3 pages (1017 words) Sources: 2 Style: Harvard

[EXCERPT] . . . .

play 'Macbeth' and film 'Luther'

Both Macbeth and Luther made decisions which were catalysts for much bloodshed. Here the comparison ends. The internal conflict both men endured and the repercussions felt by many others as a result could not be more contrasting. Discuss this quote with reference to the play and the movie.

Both the historical Martin Luther and Shakespeare's Macbeth were men who took action, rather than thrived on reflection. At the beginning of their respective narratives, they had won great acclaim from the predominant authorities within their societies. Macbeth has just become the Thane of Cawdor because of the honors he had won for King Duncan. Martin Luther was a monk within the Roman Catholic Church, the most important ecclesiastical body in Europe at the time. However, both men were torn apart by the conviction that the way they were living their lives were wrong, and ultimately they moved heaven and earth to achieve their ambitions to do what they thought was 'right.'

And here the comparison does truly end, for Martin Luther's convictions were based in how Luther personally read and interpreted the Bible, while Macbeth's questioning of the fairness of Malcolm rather than his own succession to the English throne came from without, in the persona of his own wife and the temptations presented by the prophesying witches. Regardless of whether one agrees with Martin Luther's reading of the Bible, Luther clearly did believe that he had to speak out to honor the word of God. He believed that the practice of selling indulgences was theologically incorrect, and that faith alone, rather than works, justified a soul before Christ.


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