Macbeth: Will He Really Usurp?

        How can one tell whether a person is good and of sound character shortly after meeting them? It can be difficult to truly know a person's heart even if you have known them for a while. There may be some things that can serve to indicate a person's character, though, that one may perhaps use on which to base a guess after only meeting someone for a short while. After reading only the first few scenes in Macbeth, we have been asked to say whether we think he is a good person or not. Oddly enough, I have been so busy and reading so many things at once that I have not actually read ahead. I know. It's strange. I feel weird not reading ahead, which I suppose to most people is normal, but it almost makes me feel as though I am behind. So, abnormally, I still know very little about Macbeth though the book has been in my possession a while now. But anyways, is Macbeth a good man?
         Another thing which we are to discuss is, upon reading his soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 3, Lines 140-155, is Macbeth honestly considering murdering King Duncan so he can be king as the witches have told him he will be, or is he just saying this? When we talked about this we mentioned how one might, after one’s sibling has done something quite annoying, say, “I’m going to kill [said sibling]!”, but how this is quite different from saying to oneself, “well, if I lured them down to the river, and I snuck up behind them with a log, and I lifted it high above my head and I...” and so on. The first is clearly an empty threat, an expression of annoyance, while the second is clearly more than this--a plot. So, is Macbeth just getting annoyed that he’s not king, or is he honestly plotting to usurp?
         I can’t say for certain, but I think that if I were King Duncan, I would want to be watching my back. Macbeth seems to have no problem with violently murdering his enemies, as even the very first mention of him in the play is when the captain tells us that he “unseamed [an enemy] from the nave to th’ chops, and fixed his head upon our battlements.” If he was able to gut a man and chop off his head and wave it around like a prize without flinching, is it that much of a stretch that he may begin to consider his own king his enemy for standing in his path to the throne, and so to treat him similarly to the aforementioned enemy? Sure, in his soliloquy, he states that the thought of killing the king “doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs against the use of nature,” but if the idea was an empty threat to him, it wouldn’t be affecting him so profoundly. His heart is pounding as if he already has the blade raised over King Duncan’s head, which is where he is in his mind, as best as I can tell. From the little I know of Macbeth so far, I don’t think he has good character. I think he’s in things for himself, really, and that he’s power-hungry and arrogant. He begins he soliloquy with a delighted thrill that he has just been named Thane of Cawdor and with a greedy thirst for the throne. Today, Thane of Glamis and Cawdor, tomorrow, King of Scotland (and the day after that, ruler of all earth), he seems to be thinking to himself. He says that the first part of the witches’ prophecy coming true is “[a] happy prologue... to the swelling act of the imperial theme,” and one can hear his chest swelling with pride. I think he is blind enough in his pride and thirst for power that he will slay the king, though he might regret it later, through guilt or consequence.
         Of course, I know very little about Macbeth thus far. He does seem to value honor in battle, and maybe his sense of honor and even duty to his kingdom will stay his hand and keep him from usurping. I have been wrong in predicting the character of characters in plays before; when we studied Medea earlier this year, I at first judged the title character to be of good character. I thought she was a good person who was simply wronged by Jason and who would not allow hate to consume her life. But she proved she was far more hateful than I had thought, and she committed even more wrongs than Jason. My fault with Medea, though, was trusting her too much, and seeing more good in her than there truly was; with Macbeth, if I am already distrusting him, is it not all the more likely that he is even more evil than I have already anticipated? I do think he has a conscience, but whether he truly does remains to be proven. I do not believe his conscience will stop him from usurpery, though. I do not think Macbeth is a good man and if I were King Duncan, I’d watch my back. We of the land beyond the violet mist see from afar a betrayal brewing in ancient Scotland.