Lady Macbeth says this to Macbeth to show that she is crueler than he is as she is trying to bully him into committing the crime Macbeth is very reluctant to kill Duncan as he says he has been good to him and has rewarded him with the tittle Thane of Cawdor.
Despite Macbeth's doubts about the murder Lady Macbeth shows no sense of conscience and continues to plan the murder and even drugs the chamberlain's night cap and plans to lay the blame of the murder on them. She directs Macbeth to murder Duncan.
We can see Macbeth is nervous about the murder as when he is walking through the corridor at night to Duncan's chamber he sees a dagger in his mind's eye
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee”
Lady Macbeth begins to get slightly worried that something may have gone wrong with the murder.
“Alack! I am afraid they have awak’d, And tis not done.”
Lady Macbeth’s fears are soon forgotten when Macbeth returns with blooded hands and reports the deed has been done.
“I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?”
At this point we start to see of Lady Macbeth’s worry as she thinks Macbeth said something as he came down the stairs, which shows she is nervous as she is hearing things.
“Did you not speak?”
Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth, who is having trouble sleeping, not to worry about it so much.
“Consider it not so deeply.”
Lady Macbeth also tells Macbeth that if they think about the murder it will make them go mad
“These deeds must not be thought After these ways; so, it will make us mad”
This is a very ironic comment for Lady Macbeth to make as later in the play she is driven mad by the murder not Macbeth.
Later that night Macbeth has trouble more trouble sleeping showing a real sense of regret and guilt for the crime he had just committed.
“Methought I heard a voice cry “sleep no more!”
Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth to go and plant the daggers and to smear blood on the sleeping grooms.
“Go, carry them, and smear the sleepy grooms with blood.”
She tells him to do this as it will frame the grooms and make it look like the grooms committed the murder. Macbeth is afraid to go back to Duncan’s chamber and look upon what he has done
“I am afraid to think what I have done; look on’t again I dare not.”
Lady Macbeth says that she will take the daggers and plant them on the grooms.
“Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures; ‘tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil. If he do bleed, I’ll glid the faces of the grooms withal; for it must seem their guilt.”
Macbeth is very jumpy and any noise he hears startles him. For example when someone knocks on the gate he hears the noise and panics.
“Whence is that knocking? How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?”
Lady Macbeth also gets worried when she hears the knocking as herself and Macbeth are both stood with blooded hands. They both run the risk of being caught if they are not clean and in bed by the time the people at the gate get inside.
“Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us, and show us to be watchers.”
The people knocking at the gate were actually Macduff and Lenox who had come to escort Duncan. Once they got in they were greeted by Macbeth who pretended to have been awoken by the knocking. Macbeth then showed Macduff and Lenox to Duncan’s chamber. Whilst Macduff is in the chamber Lenox talks to Macbeth about the fact that night had been wild and he had heard screams of death in the air.
“The night has been unruly: where we lay, our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say, lamentings heard I’ the air; strange screams of death.”
Macduff then comes out from the chamber having seen the dead Duncan.
“O horror! horror! horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!”
Macbeth then has to pretend he does not know what is going on in order to look innocent.
“What’s the matter?”
Macduff then explains to Macbeth and Lenox that the king has been murdered.
“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope the lords anointed temple, and stole thence the life o’ the building!”
Macbeth still has to pretend not to know what is going on so he asks what Macduff means but before he Macduff has a chance to answer Lenox asks if he means the king.
“Mean you his majesty?”
Macduff tells Lenox and Macbeth to go into the chamber to see for themselves so he does not have to speak of it.
“Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight with a new Gorgon: do not bid me speak; see, and then speak yourselves.
Macduff then cries out to raise the alarm bell as murder has been committed and everyone should awake.
“Ring the alarum-bell. Murder and treason! Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!
Lady Macbeth then comes down pretending to have been awoken by the alarm bell and asks what is going on.
“What’s the business that such a horrible trumpet calls to parley the sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!
Macduff than tells her that the news is not suitable for a woman’s ears.
“’Tis not for you to hear what I can speak; the repetition in a woman’s ear would murder as it fell.”
Banquo then arrives and Macduff tells him that Duncan has been murdered.
“O Banquo! Banquo! Our royal master’s murder’d!”
Lady Macbeth hears this and pretends to be shocked to appear innocent.
“Woe, alas! What! in our house?”
This was the wrong thing to say as the murder would have been a bad thing any where not just in their house Banquo realises this and comments on it.
“Too cruel anywhere.”
When Malcolm asks who murdered his father Lenox tells him it was the grooms as they were smeared with blood and had the daggers.
“Those of chamber, as it seem’d had done’t: their hands and faces were all badg’d with blood; so were their daggers, which unwip’d we found upon their pillows: they star’d, and were distracted; no mans life was to be trusted with them.”
Macbeth killed the grooms to make it look like he was shocked and killed them in a fit of rage when he saw they were both smeared with blood and so were there daggers.
“O yet I do repent me of my fury, that I did kill them.”
After having looked at everything that led up to the murder I believe that lady Macbeth was in fact the real driving force behind the murder of Duncan. Although Macbeth had his own ambitions, I don’t believe he had the malice to kill Duncan without Lady Macbeth’s persuasion and bullying.
