The crown symbolizes the highest form of power and authority one can have as a ruler. In Macbeth, the crown rightfully belongs to king Duncan, who is a mild and honorable ruler, respecting loyalty, true friendship and bravery. However, Macbeth's personal ambitions interfere with what is right, and he desires to possess the crown:
If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir.
However, he quickly realizes that he has...
The crown symbolizes the highest form of power and authority one can have as a ruler. In Macbeth, the crown rightfully belongs to king Duncan, who is a mild and honorable ruler, respecting loyalty, true friendship and bravery. However, Macbeth's personal ambitions interfere with what is right, and he desires to possess the crown:
If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
Without my stir.
However, he quickly realizes that he has to act if he is to become the king and feels tempted to seize the crown himself. He does take the crown by murdering king Duncan and then blaming the murder on others. The crown is seized and falls into the wrong hands because Macbeth illegally takes it. As a result, the whole outside world is cast into chaos.
Yet, Macbeth learns from the witches' prophecy that Banquo's posterity will eventually take the crown:
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding.
"The fruitless crown" means that Macbeth's future is bleak. He is racked by the following fear -- it seems that he murders Duncan and forfeits his soul in exchange for temporal power only to find out that all of this will be in vain. He does not want this to happen and obsessively starts killing anyone who could stand in his way directly or indirectly.
Macbeth's desire for the crown eventually leads to his downfall because the crown does not belong to him rightfully. So, when he dies, order is restored.
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