There is none but he whose being I do fear. From this soliloquy, it’s obvious that Macbeth is once again encompassed by the extreme terror that Banquo, his best friend may know about the truth of the deed. The fear of unsecured throne terrifies Macbeth and causes him to send murderers to perform the assassination of Banquo. Later on, the unexpected escape of Fleance triggers the ideas of visiting witches once more to seek his fate. After Macbeth knows the fact that he should be aware of Mcduff, he sends orders immediately to commence a full murder of Mcduff’s family.
Lady Macbeth has just been thinking that her husband is too weak willed to seize what she sees as rightfully his, the throne of Scotland. When she hears that King Duncan will be staying in her home, she says: 'Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top--full of direst cruelty' (1.5). In other words, she longs to act like a 'man' and kill Duncan herself. Lady Macbeth goes as far as to invite demons, or spirits, to inhabit her, enabling her to commit this great evil
Lady Macbeth is a victim of her uncontrolled ambition.This ambition causes her to push herself and Macbeth to the very edge. She convinced Macbeth to kill Duncan by questioning his manliness. Lady Macbeth shows her negative ambition and ruthlessness while speaking to Macbeth in this quote: "Was the hope drunk?...Like the poor cat I' th' adage." (Act I, Scene vii, Lines 35-45) In this quote Lady Macbeth is asking Macbeth if he is afraid to kill Duncan, and if he has enough courage to say so. She is asking him if he wants to be king or not, and if he is to be king he must commit regicide.
She becomes evil and ambitious before the murder of Banquo, and then she becomes fearful of her surroundings because of her guilt after Banquo's murder. Lady Macbeth develops her evil character by informing Macbeth about her idea of killing King Duncan and taking over the throne. "What beast was 't then, that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst to it, then you were a man; and to be more than what you were, you would be so much more than a man...When Duncan is asleep, his two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so convince that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason a limbeck only..." said Lady Macbeth (I, VII, Lines 55-77). Lady Macbeth is convincing Macbeth about her plan to kill Duncan when he sleeps.
are too full of the milk of human kindness/ To catch the nearest way.” [1.5.13] Her masculinity overshadows Macbeth’s when she asserts her power without contemplation and plans King Duncan’s murder. When Macbeth’s moral compass drives him to contemplate murdering Duncan, Lady Macbeth questions his manhood: “Wouldst thou have that/ Which thou esteemest the ornament of life/ And life a coward in thine own esteem, Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’/ Like the poor cat in the adage?’” [1.7.44] Her strength of will and ambition counteract yet
Discuss how the characters of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and Duncan are established in Act I by using textual evidence to support your points. Macbeth: “return to plague the inventor” Macbeth is a person that knows what he must do but is doubtful of it. He is the war hero and got news of his promotion by the witches, who also said he would be promoted further. To make their prophecy come true he must kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth: “unsex me here, and fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty” Lady Macbeth is the “true” evil.
1. DESCRIPTION OF LADY MACBETH Lady Macbeth is presented to the reader from her first appearance in the play as a woman fired by ambition. What Macbeth lacks in decisiveness, Lady Macbeth makes up for his lack of bloodthirsty lust for power and wealth. Swearing off her femininity at the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband powerfully to follow through with his plans to kill Duncan. After the act of regicide, it is Lady Macbeth who has the soundness of mind to plant the incriminating evidence on Duncan's guards.
In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth while being filled with ambition, convinces her husband to kill the king. There are many atrocious crimes committed in the play, not least of all regicide, and the most guilty of all the characters is Lady Macbeth, husband to Lord Macbeth. Lady Macbeth may seem to the outside world to be innocent as a flower, but in fact she uses deception and persuasion to convince others to carry out her bidding. When her lackeys fail at their tasks, she is fully able to finish the deed for them. Near the end of the play she admits to her crimes, further solidifying her guilt.
She shaped the mindset that it was necessary to murder someone who trusts you for more power and accordingly she changed Macbeth’s way of thinking. Lady Macbeth’s breakdown is at its peak in the middle of the night, when she was walking the halls and she says “Here’s the smell of blood still: all/the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little/ hand. Oh, oh, oh!” (5.1.50-52). Also another major example in Macbeth of how corruption leads to devastation is when Lady Macbeth is so overwhelmed by her guilty conscious she commits suicide and Macbeth is left to deal with this dilemma on his own, “Wherefore was that cry?/ The queen my lord is dead” (5.5.15-16). In this case Lady Macbeths need for power is extremely destructive.
In scene 1 act 7, Macbeth leaves the table and attempts to talk himself out of killing Duncan. Macbeth gives himself many logical reasons as why not to commit the murder, such as Duncan just gave him a promotion, why kill the man who just promoted you. But then Macbeth states that if he knew he wouldn’t get caught then he would do it. Then, Lady Macbeth enters the scene, and this is where the murder plan materializes. Lady Macbeth challenges him, saying that he is not a man.