Introduction Power in the hands of good people is useful because they use it to serve and improve the lives of others. On the contrary, bad people with power may abuse it to promote their own selfish interests. Furthermore, they abuse the power to oppress and cause violence and pain to their fellow human beings. Many leaders abuse their power and oppress the people they rule. Many of Shakespeare’s plays portray how power corrupts people. The abuse of power is evident in some characters in Shakespeare’s plays namely, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Titus Andronicus and Richard III. Some of the characters in the plays change once they receive power or get a promise of acquiring power; they allow greed and blind ambition to corrupt them until they meet their downfall. Macbeth Macbeth is a good example of a person who becomes corrupt because he has been promised power. The play was written in England during the time when there was a threat to the king and his throne. The people loved the king and Shakespeare wrote the play in his honor just as other writers pen praise leaders they admire (Macbeth as Royal Play 1). Macbeth first learns that he would become King in the future from the three witches. The once virtuous man starts to change and becomes a villain and wicked person full of evil, as the hunger for power begins to grow in him. The wife, Lady Macbeth, urges him to kill King Duncan and ascend to the throne and increases his ambition for power (Bloom 20). Macbeth does not want to kill because he thinks sanely, and knows it is wrong to kill “Will great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/clean from my hand?” (Shakespeare a 2. 2.58-59). He overcomes his doubts and decides to kill Kind Duncan because he thinks he is the obstacle to the throne. He has become an evil man ready to betray even a friend like he did to King Duncan thought Macbeth is a genuine friend. Thus, blind ambition leads to cruelty like the one shown to King Duncan by his friend Macbeth and his wife. Power corrupts and makes people forget their morals and commit unspeakable deeds. Greed is a vice that causes people to commit evil. The vice occurs to people who get into power through underhand dealings. They desire to consolidate their illegitimate power and in order to do so, they unleash violence on the people who are perceived to be threats to their power. Macbeth ascends to the throne, he is determined to hold on to the throne, and so he must get rid of Banquo and his family because the witches had predicted that the throne would go to his sons. He kills Banquo and his son hence adding more blood on his hands. On the other hand, his ascension to the throne drives him and Lady Macbeth apart and she later commits suicide. Macbeth becomes more violent as he desperately tries to keep his power. He plans to kill Macduff as well. He does not feel any remorse about his evil way as illustrated by his words “I am in blood/stepped in so far that, should I wade no more/returning were as tedious as go o’er” (Shakespeare a 3.4.153-137). He plans to kills Macduff and his family as well and yet he is not a threat to him “Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o’ the sword /His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls/That trace him in his line (Shakespeare a 4.1