In \u201cMacbeth as Tragic Hero,\u201d literary critic and University of Chicago professor Wayne C. Booth<\/a> discusses the amazing ability of William Shakespeare. Through Booth\u2019s writing, he highlights how and why Macbeth was so successful. In the play, Shakespeare does and did what many writers (dramatist and novelist) have still not been able to fully accomplish\u2015he causes the audience to feel true pity and sympathy towards the murderer: indeed, as Booth puts it, this is what constitutes Shakespeare’s ‘problem of Macbeth’.<\/span><\/p>\n Put even in its simplest terms, the problem Shakespeare gave himself in Macbeth<\/em> was a tremendous one. Take a good man, a noble man, a man admired by all who know him\u2014and destroy him, not only physically and emotionally, as the Greeks destroyed their heroes, but also morally and intellectually.\u00a0As if this were not difficult enough as a dramatic hurdle, while you are transforming him into one of the most despicable mortals conceivable, maintain him as a tragic hero\u2015that is, keep him so sympathetic that, when he comes to his death, the audience will pity rather than detest him; they must feel relieved to see him out of his misery rather than pleased to see him destroyed. (23)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Because Shakespeare is able to have Macbeth do all these terrible deeds, yet preserves him as an object of our pity rather than are scorn, is what makes Shakespeare’s tragedy brilliant: the play succeeds in bringing out our authentic feelings and emotions because of how every word and mood was meticulously chosen by the great playwright.<\/span><\/p>\n Consider the murders that take place in Macbeth<\/em>. Many modern movie adaptations stray from Shakespeare’s text, which distorts the rhetorical appeal that Booth insists is part of how Macbeth the character is presented to us. For example, take this dramatization of the death of King Duncan in a 1971 movie version<\/a> of the play.<\/span><\/p>\n