“All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis.”
“All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor.”
“All hail Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter.”
Act 1 Scene 3 line 46 - 48
Shortly after this prediction, Macbeth becomes Thane of Cawdor showing the first part of the witches’ prediction is true. This then makes Macbeth think, “Will I become king?” However, for Macbeth to become King, Duncan has to die. I think that Macbeth could be fed up of being a warrior and he is jealous his cousin is King and getting all the glory, whereas Macbeth is the one fighting for hid country and not Duncan. Moreover, now he’s been told that he will become and believes the prediction as he has become Thane of Cawdor, he has got the chance to do something about it and become King, as I think the thought of being King has already crossed his mind.
Macbeth then says:
“If chance will have me king,
Why chance may crown me without my stir.”
Act 1 Scene 3 line 146
This shows Macbeth is willing to wait for the time in which he becomes King. Then again, why does Macbeth decide to murder Duncan instead of waiting for time to run its course?
We can see that Macbeth is having doubts about his decision to kill Duncan. He says:
“First as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murder shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself.”
Act 1 Scene 7 lines 13 – 16
Macbeth is saying that he shouldn’t kill Duncan, out of loyalty and because Duncan has been a good king, he says Duncan is a guest in my castle and we should be protecting him against murder. Therefore, it can be seen that Macbeth could be considered not to blame for the death as he has serious doubts in his mind he must have been influenced in some way to actually carry out the murder. The witches put the idea into Macbeth’s head and Lady Macbeth convinced or pushed Macbeth into perform the murder. However, it was up to Macbeth whether or not he murdered Duncan as he’s got his own mind and can think for himself and he chose to murder King Duncan. I think his doubts about killing Duncan were slowly driving him mad, which, could be said to be the start of Macbeth’s downfall. This can be seen before Macbeth commits the murder when he sees a dagger before his eyes, where he says:
“Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:
I have thee not, and yet I still see thee still.”
Act 2 Scene 1 lines 33 – 35
We can see even before even before he kills the king, it could be said that Macbeth is “weak” in his mind, which is the start of his downfall.
He can also be said to be weak as he doesn’t want to kill Duncan, but he is persuaded by Lady Macbeth to go ahead with the murder as she calls him a coward so Macbeth does go ahead with the murder, this could be because Macbeth is seen as a “brave” warrior at the beginning of the play and he wants to be seen as brave in the eyes of his wife.
After Macbeth kills Duncan he doesn’t stop killing and he arranges to kill Banquo and his son and Macduff’s family without the influence of anyone else. Thus, we can see Macbeth as “cold-hearted”, not caring that he’s killing innocent people so he can stay as King of Scotland and maybe it can be said that Macbeth has always been this type of person even before he murdered Duncan, showing he’s the type of man who ****************************************
