After Duncan’s death Macbeth has becomes king because Duncan ’s sons have fled. Macbeth is a very different type of king he is ruthless, devious and trusts no one apart from Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is totally in agreement with Macbeth and they both want to kill the King.
When Macbeth is first seen he is a very loyal and trusting person, but when he meets the 3 witches and it is predicted that he will be king and Thane of Cawder his personality starts to be corrupted by ambition. He starts to trust no one. We see this change when he says, “The prince of Cumberland that is a step, on which I must fall down, or else o’leap.” As soon as these predictions are made he immediately wants to speed up his way to kingship. He has an idea to kill the king This idea is strongly backed up by Lady Macbeth, who suggests how and where it should be done. It is obvious that she wants Macbeth to be king as much as he does, if not more.
At the beginning of the play we meet a character called Banquo who was Macbeth’s very good friend. He was also a witness to the witches’ predictions and was given a prediction himself, that his sons would be King. As the play moves on and Macbeth becomes King, Banquo suspects that Duncan’s death has something to do with Macbeth. We see this when Banquo says “And question this most bloody piece of work…Against the undivulged pretence I fight of treasonous malice”. Here we see Macbeth’s sneaky and treacherous behaviour when he has Banquo killed due to his suspicions. Then he murders Macduff’s whole family. He is depicted as a cruel tyrant.
We know however, that Macbeth still feels partially guilty for the murder of Banquo, as he was a good friend. We know the pressure is getting to Macbeth when he sees a ghost of Banquo during a banquet, ”Avaunt and quit my sight, let the earth hide they! Thy bones are marrowless, the blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes”. Luckily Lady Macbeth comes to his aid by saying that he suffers from hallucinations. Although people still suspect something is still wrong.
At this point in the play Macbeth has another encounter with the trio of witches, where he receives a further two predictions. The two predictions were that firstly he would not die until the wood move from its original place to Dunsadane, which is where his castle is. Moving that far is very hard for a whole forest. The second said that a man born of women could not kill him. This caused him to think he couldn’t be killed.
Macbeth thinks that Macduff suspects something. This caused him to act irrationally by having his whole family killed. This proved to Macduff and Malcolm that Macbeth had killed Duncan and Banquo.
His actions are in complete contrast to the behaviour of both Duncan and also the qualities that Malcom describes a good king should be. Malcom while talking to macduff describes what qualities he thinks a good king should have, “ The king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness, bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, devotion, patience, courage, fortitude.”
At this point Lady Macbeth, who has been progressively going more insane realises that they are about to be caught and commits suicide.
Once Malcolm and Macduff’s armies are in sight of Macbeth’s castle he realises that they are all carrying boughs cut from the trees of a great forest. At this point people begin to flee until only Macbeth remains once the army arrives. Macbeth killed many people until he came up against Malcolm, who he fought. He was not scared though because according to the previous predictions a man could not kill him whom was born of a woman. This shows a brave side of Macbeth and also how much he believes the witches comments. But unluckily for him Malcolm was born of caesarean. Malcolm then killed him and became king. I think this part of the play makes the audience give Macbeth some sympathy regarding his bravery.
We have know seen Macbeth’s whole reign, and I can see that kingship has been depicted in the forms of treachery, disloyalty, cunning, but also bravery, love, and fearlessness. He probably would have behaved very differently had it not been for the witches and Lady Macbeth. I think that Shakespeare is trying to say that there are many types of kings and that when they become king some of them abuse their power.
