Characters are manipulative, influencing others to meet their ends. In ‘Macbeth’, Macbeth is manipulated by his wife, Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth Is fully aware she will have to push Macbeth in to murdering Duncan. She states ‘I fear thy nature; it is too full of the milk of human kindness’, ‘Human kindness ‘referring to Macbeth’s Kind moral and heart. She is fearful that Macbeth’s kind nature will inhibit him from killing the king.
Language is used by Shakespeare in a number of ways throughout the play to present the changing character of Lady Macbeth. Instantly Lady Macbeth is introduced through her language and actions to the audience as a powerful key figure. Firstly, charming and devoted to her husband later driven only by ambitious which is her downfall. My essay will focus on these devices of language: metaphors, imaginary, symbolism to answers the question set. Shakespeare use of language shows that her devotion towards her husband is short lived as she soon comes across as being annoyed that her husband Macbeth isn't quite "man enough" to do what it takes to be king.
How do Lady Macbeth and the Witches influence Macbeth in the murder of Duncan? At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a noble and valiant general who possesses unwavering loyalty towards Duncan. This version of Macbeth is shattered when his ambition overrides his sense of morality, largely due to two powerful female influences; Lady Macbeth and the Witches. At the time when this was written, women were expected to be subservient to men as part of the natural order of things therefore the idea of women dominating men was quite controversial. The witches create Macbeth’s fate by inciting him of his rise to power, which ignites his latent ambition to achieve greatness.
Yet do I fear thy nature, / It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way.” (I.V.15-18).These lines tell how much she wants power so bad that she makes Macbeth feel unmanly by telling what she could do. Lady Macbeth shows devotion to making Macbeth King by planning ways that he can become king.
He has becomes obsessed with preventing the overthrow of him as a king. Some may say Macbeth became stronger as the play went on, but evidences shows he had become weaker as the haunting of the ghost Banquo broke him down to a point where he was questionably insane. He relied far too much on the prophecies and the supernatural, which in the end was his downfall. Towards the end of the play Lady Macbeth has died and the battle is drawing closer to Macbeth. After hearing the news of Lady Macbeth’s death Macbeth appears unemotional “She should have died hereafter;…” Macbeth is overly confident due to the witch’s prophecies telling him that anyone born from a woman cannot harm him.
Insanity, self preservation, greed, and prophecy, are all reasons that led to the fall of Macbeth. Within each, there is one common factor; desire. Driven by his desire for Lady Macbeth’s love and Duncan’s fame, Macbeth was pushed to insanity, later wishing it could all go back to the way it had been. It was the same desire that led to the fatal fall of Macbeth. In the beginning of the play, after Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth of the witch’s prophecy, she grew attached to the idea of being queen.
She thinks nothing of murder. Finally, she is wracked with guilt from her deed. First, Lady Macbeth is ambitious. When her husband writes her a letter saying that some witches suggested he might be promoted to Thane of Cawdor and then king, she seems latch right on to the idea. She is completely ready to make him king, even though he is not the king’s successor.
They clearly have an extremely passionate relationship and Shakespeare portrays that Lady Macbeth is willing to do whatever it takes to assist her husband. You could argue that the idea of potential power, or moving up the social hierarchy, goes to Lady Macbeth’s head and that her motivation for helping Macbeth is rather selfish-she alone wants the power. It could also be argued that the ‘fatal’, ‘gall’, ‘murdering’, ‘mischief’, ‘night’, and ‘Hell’ also support the previous point. The audience never actually meet the ‘real’ Lady Macbeth without the influence of the witches. As there is such a huge supernatural element to this scene and it is so carefully attached to Lady Macbeth in this scene, it makes me question how the Elizabethan audience would have reacted to her character.
Lady Macbeth’s Direct Influence of Macbeth The downfall of Macbeth is caused by two unparalleled sides of the same road that is merely Macbeth’s own personal weak conscious and the dominated physiological abuse of Lady Macbeth. The constant manipulation of Lady Macbeth directed at her husband operates as an assault to his duties as a man and spouse, along with substituting her husband’s ambitions and aspirations with her own thriving greed for power. The ability to think to beyond what is needed encourages not only the collapse of sanity in Macbeth but also the rationality of Lady Macbeth. “What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow’r to accompt? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
He then begins about the prophecy of becoming king, which then led to thoughts of murder. Thus, the witches use that act of equivocation to their advantage. Different characters in Macbeth use equivocation and most often it is one that has a double meaning. One in particular is when Lady Macbeth states: “In every point twice done and then done double, Were poor and single business to contend Against those honors deep and broad wherewith Your majesty loads our house. For those of old, And the late dignities heap’d up to them, We rest your hermits”.