Essay on Duddy vs Macbeth

Words: 1655
Pages: 7

The Corruption of Macbeth and Duddy Everyone should follow their dreams, but sometimes when you get too caught up in your dreams; you begin to forget about reality. Throughout the play Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare and the novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, written by Mordecai Richler, protagonists Macbeth and Duddy become corrupted as they on the pursuit of their dream. Throughout the novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and the play Macbeth, both protagonists have characters in their life that influence them into becoming corrupt. Both characters, Duddy and Macbeth have such a strong ambition that it leads to the corruption of themselves. Duddy and Macbeth’s pursuit of their dreams leads them to be greedy which …show more content…
Just like Macbeth, Duddy is willing to do anything he can in order to obtain his dream and have all his land even if it means hurting others that are close to him. We see this when Duddy steals money from Virgil when it says “Duddy took a quick look virgil’s bank balance, whistled, noted his account number and ripped out two cheques. He forged the signature by holding the cheque and a letter Virgil had signed up to the window and tracing slowly.” (Richler, 307-308) This shows that Duddy’s ambition to get his land has him doing anything he can to get it which leads to his corruption. Also, throughout both Macbeth and Duddy, their ambition to pursue their dream leads to death or injuries of other characters which leads to their corruption. As Macbeth’s ambition grows and he murders Duncan, we see him feel guilt when
Page 4 he says “I’ll go no more. I am afraid to think what I have done; Look on ‘t again I dare not.” (Shakespeare, 30) We see Macbeth begin to feel guilty and the more characters that die we see he begins to become more and more corrupt. Similar to Macbeth, we see Duddy’s ambition to pursue his dream lead to a very severe injury of one of his friends. Duddy’s epileptic employee, Virgil, gets