In my opinion, Lady Macbeth is not the main driving force behind King Duncan's murder.

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Aditya Kaul 10 A        -  -

Macbeth Essay

In my opinion, Lady Macbeth is not the main driving force behind King Duncan’s murder. The onus for this heinous deed rests with Macbeth himself, as he would have committed this treacherous act even if Lady Macbeth had not goaded him on.

When the witches make their predictions, they told Macbeth that he would be Thane of Cawdor and then later King. I firmly believe that these predictions caused Macbeth to start thinking, and thus started a chain of events that ended up with Duncan being murdered. Macbeth’s reaction to the witches’ prophecy was one of fear and agitation. “Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?” says Banquo.

I feel that Macbeth fears the prophecy because he had been thinking about becoming King before. Deep inside him, Macbeth had the ambition to become King, and this is exactly what the witches prophesized and it was as if they had read his mind. This must be the reason the witches had chosen Macbeth, and not Banquo or any other Thane in Scotland. The witches’ prophecy ignited his deep dark ambition, and he starts to think about how he will become King.

However, the witches cannot be held responsible for Duncan’s murder because Macbeth already did have the thought of being King before. The thought was already in Macbeth’s head, all the witches did was to act as a catalyst in making him pursue his ambition.

Macbeth then becomes “rapt withal” because, I feel, he starts thinking about the different ways he can become King. One of them was to murder Duncan himself, and this must have been the “horrid image” Macbeth thinks about. Although this image scares him, it stills raises the question of whether Macbeth really is as noble and loyal a Thane as people say he is. If he were such a noble Thane, why would he think about killing his own King? One important point to mention here is that he is already thinking about killing King Duncan without any intervention of Lady Macbeth, who has not even been introduced into the play.

However, Macbeth then decides that since he was made Thane of Cawdor without doing anything, he might become King without having to do much either (“without my stir”). Macbeth decides that if he becomes King it will be because of sheer good luck, not because he did something to try becoming King. I feel that this decision might have been made because he knows that he is one of the most powerful Thane in Scotland and so expects to be made Duncan’s heir to the throne. However, King Duncan names the heir of his throne to be Malcolm, his elder son, who shall be known as the Prince of Cumberland. It is then that Macbeth decides that he must take some action if he ever hopes to be King.

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“The Prince of Cumberland-that is a step, on which I must fall down, or else o’erleap For in my way it lies. Stars hide your fires, Let no light see my black and deep desires,” says Macbeth. This is very much a contrast to the decision he had made of doing nothing against Duncan in the previous scene. His loyalty to his King looses out to his ambition.

Lady Macbeth is then introduced into the play when Macbeth sends a letter to her, telling her about the strange events that happened that day, perhaps because he knew that ...

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