The Power of Power

                       

     Power. It's one of the many things materialistic things people can desire along with love and money. Although the three things together or alone can do just as much damage as good. While power has enabled people to create everything around us- big, small, important, mundane- there are many times people take advantage of even the smallest amount of power. Macbeth was given a small sneak-peak of his future, and although he does not possess the magic that the witches or Hecate used to formulate the prophecy, it's given him power through encouraging him to proceed and follow the fate. The use of power differs from person to person, which is why there are both people who misuse power and authority and those who use it to help and benefit other people besides themselves. Power can easily cloud judgement as the need to only satisfy yourself becomes the only thought. In Macbeth, idealistic life of becoming king has become Macbeth's only goal, especially as he had gotten as far as he is.
     It's those who use their power justly can be considered a "hero", and a hero can come in all different shapes or sizes. A hero is powerful, but they used their free will and a clear conscious to decide whether to represent good or bad. Although, it's hard to always be a hero because of the responsibility and the dependence a lot of people have you, but it's the strength to persevere that is the hero's true strength. An important quality to have in a "hero" is honesty, that they're not too above themselves to tell others truthfully, a quality that a villain couldn't possess. I think that there's strength in heroes that are able to choose to be a hero rather than a villain- that characterizes a true hero. 
     There are many real life examples of heroes that we've read about in newspapers, books, and magazines or even people we know and have encountered in real life. Heroes are not limited to fiction because there are many people that have shown qualities that may be thought to only appear in characters. In Macbeth, Macbeth is given the choice to be maybe not the hero, but not the villain. Heroes in our newspapers have chosen to be the hero, and despite the pressures and temptations to choose otherwise, they chose to do the right thing. In Macbeth, Macbeth misused the power of knowing his future and while he was torn between acting upon his desires, he went through with it anyway. Macbeth didn't understand how to use his power and the pressure from his wife, and though he's seen as a hero in the beginning, him succumbing to the misuse of his power turn the tables.