Question #1
I think that people who are not "evil" take the first step to becoming evil for a multitude of reasons. In general what they get out of the evil act outweighs the weight of that evil act they will then have to carry. For instance, Macbeth initially did not think killing the king would be worth him becoming king but Lady Macbeth talked him into it. I would say that some sort of desperation is involved in taking that first step. They feel like there is no other option so the only way they can better there situation is by doing something evil. The internal consequences could be things like guilt or shame because they would not normally do something like that, like Macbeth would have never thought of killing Duncan had the witches not told him what he had to gain from it. After he did end up killing Duncan the guilt led him to doing other evil deeds, like killing Banquo. For this same reason a lot of times when people start doing evil deeds they continue to do them.
I like your conclusion that once people commit one evil deed, it becomes sort of habitual and snowballs. I think it would add to your analysis if you considered defining what you mean by evil (and how that is applied in Macbeth), and drawing connections to the implications of those actions as seen in the text or real life. You made a good point to say that sometimes there does not appear to be another option, but then I'd add when we see that in Macbeth as well. Are there other consequences besides personal guilt and shame?
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