Killing as a Moral Barometer in Macbeth        In William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, the title character is a killer. Through the course of the play, he kills five different people or groups of people, one in each act. These are, respectively, Macdonwald, Duncan, Banquo, Macduff's family, and Young Siward. These five killings are different. In the beginning, Macbeth kills for his king. He then suffers a fall from grace before finally becoming a noble figure again in the end. But more interesting than this process is the way in which Shakespeare shows us the changes in Macbeth's character. Shakespeare uses the killings as a sort of "barometer" to illustrate these changes. Before the play begins, Macbeth's Scotland and Norway fight a war.
