Exploring Relationship between Ethics, Morality and Literature in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Abstract

The relationship between literature and ethics dates since ancient time. Ethics also known as Moral Philosophy is a branch of Philosophy that deals with systematizing code of conduct of human behavior, questions human morality, sets the rules what is right or wrong, good or evil and how people is ought to live. Ethics in literature deal with both ethics and aesthetics. Literature under its aesthetic value has shouldered tremendous responsibility to give better society. It talks about values, morals, ethics, principles, humanity and so on. Hence literature plays a most significant role in being accountable for the society, for the world we live in. Whether it were Sophocles, Aeschylus, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Dryden, Dickens to contemporary period all have dealt with ethics in their writings. The current research will focus on the relationship between ethics and literature with the study of Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth. It will further enlarge the vision and importance of ethics in one’s life and by going astray how it can result into dire consequences.