This also points to how unintelligent Macbeth really was. This is true for Lady Macbeth as well, as she convinced Macbeth to follow through with the plan, even with Macbeth doubting himself so much. I don’t think anyone could have predicted how Lady Macbeth and Macbeth both responded to Duncan’s murder. In committing the murder, Macbeth became king, but he would also become a nervous wreck that could be executed at any
She supported her husband and Macbeth trusted her very much. Because of this trust, Lady Macbeth was able to persuade Macbeth to murder King Duncan, thereby Macbeth assuming the position of king with Lady Macbeth his queen. Macbeth carried out this plot as he felt he was obliged to give Lady Macbeth some form of ‘compensation’ as he had been unable to sire a child with Lady Macbeth. Therefore the reason for Macbeth becoming king was not only his hunger for power but to also please Lady Macbeth. Macbeth’s motive for murdering King Duncan was possibly based upon pleasing his wife as much as Macbeth’s desire to assume power.
Without Lady Macbeth, he husband Macbeth wouldn’t have gone through with the murders of his fellow friends and King to get the throne. “Look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t” (1.6.76-77) This tells us that Lady Macbeth is telling Macbeth to be nice to the King while he’s planning the murder. Lady Macbeth deceives and betrays her own womans nature, she bretrays herself when she sleep walks and confesses the murder, as well as her King. She plants the dagger that he’s killed with, next to him so that it looks like it was a committed crime. She is a very loving wife, who would do anything for her husband.
She finds him a coward because he fails to follow the murder plan and does not leave two daggers with Duncan’s sleeping guards so as to blame them for the murder. By boldly doing the act herself and going back to the murder scene to smear blood on the guards, Lady Macbeth proves ambitious and ruthless while Macbeth appears yet still contemplative and somewhat humane. After Macbeth says “I am afraid to think what I have done./ Look on it again I dare not..” [2.1.63] Macbeth scrutinizes him and tells him “‘tis the eyes of childhood/ That fears a painted devil,” [2.1.66] which ultimately shows Macbeth’s moral compass falling into the hands of his wife who proves the stronger
This shows how cold Lady Macbeth is, as milk is the food of new born children, she is implying Macbeth is too much like a kind child to murder anyone, which is another method used to spur Macbeth on into killing his king. Her coldness and control is again shown when she begins to plot Duncan’s murder with Macbeth, she says he should ‘look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it’, more advice for the killing of his king, and ‘leave the rest to me’ shows her cool control over the matter. Lady Macbeth also shows a more helpful side, offering help. ‘I may pour my spirits in thine ear’, which although seemingly providing a contrast to her cold hearted plotting earlier, is in fact another way in which she is convincing Macbeth to kill Duncan, her words are sweet to Macbeth’s ear, but are in fact rooted in evil, and this perhaps shows an ‘innocent flower’ side to Lady Macbeth. Macbeth however is on the other end of the scale in their relationship, and once he plucks up the courage to tell her he does not want to continue with the murder.
Macbeth’s decadence then led to his marriage to slowly fall apart. At first, him and Lady Macbeth really do love each other, and show affection for one another. Though, Lady Macbeth becomes less important to her husband, Macbeth, after the murder of Duncan and he allows the witches to take her place. The witches pretty much have him brain-washed toward the end of the play by making him believe that no man could ever bring harm to him. With him believing such nonsense, he just becomes his monster who is completely
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.
From the moment she makes her first appearance in Macbeth, it is impossible to deny that Lady Macbeth is a force to be reckoned with. She doesn’t question her husband’s plan to kill the King; no, she questions his manliness, fearing he is too soft to actually keep his word: Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promised. 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) She fears that Macbeth lacks the monstrous brutality necessary to kill Duncan and fulfill the prophecy of the three witches—which is surprising, considering he hacked his way through a throng of innocents just to chop a man in half and stick his head on a pike—and so she tells Macbeth that she will make the arrangements to
New Time, Same Problems: False Ambition in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures When looking at these works we see that their characters portray similar characteristics and dilemmas. Pauline from Heavenly Creatures gets influenced by Juliette to believe that if they get rid of Pauline’s mother, Honora, they will be able to achieve all the goals they have; this is short lived when they get separated anyway. Similarly, Macbeth is convinced by his wife that the killing Duncan is the right way to become king, after the murder takes place he realizes that there are more obstacles to over come till he becomes king; obstacles he cannot over come. William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is similar to the film Heavenly Creatures by Peter Jackson because of the character parallels
The murder of Duncan proves to be difficult for Macbeth to come to terms with his guilt, but he does not feel such a great deal of remorse, once Lady Macbeth reassures him. After the murder of Duncan , Macbeth puts on an extravagant show for the nobles, so as not to place blame on him, for the murder. “O horror, horror, horror, / Tongue nor heart cannot conceive, nor name thee.” (2.3.59-60). If he is truly remorseful it would prove to be very difficult to put on such a façade. His lack of a guilty conscience allows for him to go on in denial and is able to clear his mind of any remorse.