Lady Macbeth is not satisfied with power, as soon as there is an additional opportunity for abundant power Lady Macbeth is committed to getting that power by any means necessary, moral or immoral. She desires for her husband to gutlessly murder King Duncan and expects him to be mentally stable after the murder. However, she is the one who is driven to complete insanity because of all the killing that Macbeth is doing and all the bloodshed that the pair has caused. This is essentially Lady Macbeths fault as she bestowed her corrupt morals onto Macbeth. 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.
Macbeth on the other hand cannot sleep and starts to see things. When Macbeth starts acting strange towards people, Lady Macbeth deceives everyone to hind their secret. When Macbeth kills Banquo and Lady Macduff, Macbeth’s guilt starts to go away because the evil and amount of power has taken over him. Lady Macbeth starts to feel guilty and is no longer able to sleep. She fears the dark, meaning she is afraid of evil and what has become of it.
She has a forceful impact on him and is another key character to blame for his developing desire of killing others to get away with her master plan. Macbeth mainly brings tragedy to their relationship for committing these crimes. The combined shame of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth eventually breaks them apart, and they parish as people,
/ When you durst do it, then you were a man” (1.7.47-49).. She defines manhood as stark aggression to achieve power in any means necessary such as killing Duncan. Macbeth, had compassion for Duncan but due to fear of being demasculinized if he did not act on his ambition results in his submission into temptation. As said from a female, it makes the reverse psychology from Lady Macbeth even more potent due to the preservation of gender roles. As one progresses through the story, Macbeth becomes more emotionally numb and tyrannical, for he then kills Banquo for fear of his intelligence on the murder of King Duncan. Then he kills Macduff’s family out of anger.
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.
Overall, the word blood has a lot of significance behind it because it means a lot of things. It represents things that are the complete opposite of each other like hate or happiness, or life and death. The main character, Macbeth, was a murderer and was the cause of the lost lives in the play. The front cover of the play portrays a picture of Macbeth holding a bloody dagger. That shows the audience how Macbeth is a
After Macbeth finally gives into the pressure and commits the murder of Duncan, his hands are stained with blood, representing his tainted conscience. When Macbeth meets with his wife directly after the murder he panics when he questions “What hands are here!” (II.2.76). Macbeth’s guilt is so heavily weighing upon him that he undergoes an identity crisis, not recognizing these “hangman’s hands” (II.2.37). Macbeth has committed the unthinkable. With his very, own hands he murdered Duncan, an honorable king, which drastically changes his perspective on life.
Lady Macbeth is constantly ridiculing Macbeth because he is too afraid to kill Duncan, and she even tells him that he might as well be a woman. This is ironic because in this quote, Lady Macbeth says “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (5.1.39), which lets the readers know that she feels guilty. This guilt is what would eventually drive her to madness. Mental madness all due to an attempt to gain and maintain power; power both over their own selves and a run for
It symbolizes how much people will go through to hide their horrid deeds. Shakespeare uses the symbol of blood to represent guilt, evil, murder and death. This representation of blood is very familiar to what is understood by many. In the end the blood does not signal honor or bravery at all it represents the guilt felt by the Macbeths about not only about Duncan and Banquo but all the horrible murders they have committed. The motif of blood comes up so often in this play that it almost begins to be a dominating theme.
This is identified in Act Two, Scene Two where Macbeth converses with Lady Macbeth about the death of Duncan. Lady Macbeth is given a reason to condescend and patronize Macbeth because of his self paralysing guilt, which lead him thoughtlessly not leaving the bloody daggers at the murder scene, leaving Lady Macbeth the dangerous task of returning the daggers, due to Macbeth’s plagued worry. ‘I’ll go no more. I am afraid to think what I have done” (P.39). This demonstrates Macbeths’ weakness in character, also juxtaposes with Lady Macbeth as she is a strong character and shows that Macbeth is easily manipulated.