‘Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?
Act 1 Scene 3 lines 50 – 51
Macbeth may have flinched because he was already considering murdering Duncan and he feels as thought the witches’ have read his mind and know what he is thinking.
When people have a dilemma they naturally turn to towards people they love and are close to. In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is greatly responsible for the killing of King Duncan. At the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth comes across as a determined woman who can manipulate Macbeth easily, for example in act 1 scene 7 line 45 Lady Macbeth says ‘…like the poor cat i’th’adage?’ by saying this she is referring to Macbeth as the cat that would eat fish but is not prepared to get its feet wet. She also says implicitly that Macbeth is not hard enough to kill in act 2 scene 5 lines 15 – 19:
‘It is too full o’th’milk of human kindness
to catch the nearest was. Thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it.’
In this quotation Lady Macbeth is saying that Macbeth has the ambition as he wants to kill Duncan and become king but he does not have the wickedness or cruelty to go ahead with it. She manipulates his self-esteem by playing with his manliness and his bravery. Lady Macbeth is an influence on Macbeth that lets out his evil side. I do not think that Macbeth is a cold-blooded killer with no feelings; I think that Lady Macbeth brought out that side of him. Macbeth is a brave hero and a brutal murderer. The first time we hear of Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 2 he is known as a brave warrior. He dies bravely too – he fights to the end even though he knows he will not win, in Act 5 Scene 8. He brutally kills Duncan in Act 2 Scene 2 , but they are signs to show that Macbeth does not want to. He knows that killing Duncan is wrong because he decides not to do it an Act 1 Scene 7, but Lady Macbeth talks him into it, as I discussed before. Before Duncan is killed Macbeth feels bad, and after he has done it he feels extremely guilty. In Act 3, when he has Banquo killed, he is a guilty wreck when Banquo’s ghost appears. Macbeth knows that everything he has done is wrong, his feelings and emotions show this.
Macbeth wants to be manly and Lady Macbeth persuades him to kill Duncan by telling Macbeth he is a coward. If Macbeth was truly brave he would have stood up for what he knew was the right thing to do.
The simplest explanation for Macbeth’s downfall is his ambition. He wanted to become king so much that in the end, killing seems to be the only answer to continue to cover up his wrong doings or he will face losing everything.
In act 1 scene 7 when Macbeth is thinking about killing King Duncan he talks about his ‘vaulting ambition’ in lines 27 – 28:
‘Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’other…’
What Macbeth means in this quotation is that his excessive ambition is like a horse that tries to jump too high and falls on the other side of the fence. Macbeth may realise that killing Duncan may be a bit far-fetched and his plan will not work - people will find out what he has done if he is to go through with the murder.
Macbeth can be ruthless and cold-blooded. He orders Banquo and Macduff to be killed because he does not want anyone to be more powerful than him. This shows that Macbeth is greedy too and is obsessed with power, and reigning as king, but he does not realize that what he is doing to make himself more powerful is actually leading him to a tragic and fatal downfall.
The final main factor that contributes to Macbeth’s downfall is fate. Fate is the power that is believed to control events. Macbeth makes a soliloquy in act 5 scene 5 and says:
‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his our upon the stage…’
Macbeth feels like people are nothing more than actors playing a part on a stage, and that they are not really in control of their lives. Macbeth’s fortune in the play is a tragic one. Many people believe that fate is what you make it. Macbeth started out as a hero and became more popular as he was made Thane of Cawdor. Everything looked positive for his future until he became too greedy and his desire for power overwhelmed him. In act 1 scene 2 Macbeth is given the title ‘Thane of Cawdor’ but the title first belonged to one who was ‘a most disloyal triator’.
‘…The merciless Macdonald-
Worthy to be a rebel…’
Lines 9 -10
This may symbolize the future that was to be for Macbeth. Killing Duncan made Macbeth more hungry for power and the more he killed the more power he wanted. By doing this Macbeth’s fate changed and he no longer had a happy and successful life ahead of him.
The witches’ prophesies, Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s ambition, and his fate, all play a major role in the tragic downfall of Macbeth, which is his death.