At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is depicted as being a "noble" and obedient subject as he is presented to us after his recent victory for the king. However, on his way home after the battle, he comes across three witches whose prophecies intrigue and disturb him with their seductive promises of power "you will be king from now on!" ". His attitude to these predictions, although initially apprehensive, "why do you start and seem afraid?" will soon turn into desire "he seems delighted" this would have considered irrational behavior for the Jacobean audiences of the time who treated the supernatural with fear and suspicion. Macbeth's natural inclination to escape the witches is thwarted by his overriding desire for power and position "stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more", this demonstrates his greed for power, indicating that although Although he is a hero, there are latent flaws in him. his character as well as his ambition that he lets dictate his actions. His reactions contrast with Banqou's "Can the devil speak the truth" which embodies the Jacobean attitudes of the time and serves to further emphasize the irrationality of Macbeth's response. Contradictorily, at the beginning of author Conan Doyle's novel, Sherlock is described as "the most perfect reasoning and observation machine the world has ever seen", his comparison with a machine and his aversion to Emotions give us the distinct impression of a "cold" and calculating character. However, in direct contrast to this, Watson provides us with a description of his mood swings "alternating between cocaine and ambition", as well as his initial behavior "pacing the room quickly, impatiently" calls into question this previous impression of his " perfection” with its v. ..... middle of paper ...... the mental imbalance is made clear to the audience by their impatience for the battle to begin, "creeping at this insignificant pace since the day to-day" the use of personification by the word "crawl" suggests that Macbeth feels that every minute is tedious and eternal now that he no longer has a reason to live it. Furthermore, this impression is reinforced by his self-reinforcing death wish. -later exclaiming, "Blow out, blow out a brief candle", signifying for the audience his final recognition of all he has done in his ambition-fueled quest for power and his subsequent interpretation of life being nothing "but a walking shadow" is used to imply that he now believes that life is fleeting and inconsequential and that all of his sacrifices, like his afterlife, are of little importance to the contextual audience. , this would represent his final descent into an irrefutably disturbed character.