The Search For Power In Macbeth

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Macbeth is a play written by William Shakespeare in the year 1606. It is based in Scotland in the 11th century and follows the titular character as he conspires to kill the King and ascend to the throne. His journey begins after receiving a prophecy from three witches detailing that he is destined to first become the Thane of Cawdor, and then the next Scottish monarch. The play climaxes in Macbeth's untimely death after his ambition to succeed and keep the throne leads him to become a paranoid and cruel tyrant. The Raven Boys is a 2012 urban fantasy novel by Maggie Stiefvater that is based in a small Virginian town called Henrietta. This fictional setting provides the backdrop for a quest to find a set of mystical energy pathways …show more content…
At the beginning of the play, Macbeth and Macduff are fellow nobleman who share a mutual respect for each other. However, after Macbeth kills King Duncan, Macduff begins to becomes suspicious of him. The tension escalates after Macduff flees to England and Macbeth sends murderers to Macduff's castle in order to kill his entire family. After getting word of the attack, Macduff is determined to enact revenge against Macbeth and kill him: “Front to front bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself. Within my sword's length set him” (Shakespeare, 4.3). Macbeth's paranoia as a result of his ambition for power destroyed the respectful relationship he shared with Macduff, his fellow countryman. In The Raven Boys, Whelk begins his search for the Ley Lines while his family still has a firm grip on their fortune. It is mostly a game for him and his best friend, Noah Czerny, and they approach it with mutual camaraderie. Nevertheless, once Whelk falls from grace, his obsession begins to take hold and his relationship with Czerny shifts dramatically. He begins to distance himself from their past friendship and view him as expendable and meek, two things that Whelk does not consider aspects of his own character: “Czerny still hadn't cared, not really. He was the most mild, ambitionless creature Whelk had ever seen...Czerny didn't have a problem being no better than the other Aglionby students”
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