She replies, “O never shall sun that morrow see”. Macbeth debates whether he should kill Duncan. The biggest problem as he sees it, is that murdering his own guest would return to plague him. He knows that Duncan has been a good king, and heaven itself will expose the wickedness of Macbeth. The only justification for the murder is his own ambition. He seeks to decide what to do - reasons that if he could get away with the murder, then he wouldn’t worry about damnation in the after life. He informs his wife that he intends to change his mind and not murder King Duncan. Evidence of this is, “First as I am his kinsman and his subject, strong both against his deed; then as his host, who against his murderer shut the door, not bear the knife my self.”
But Lady Macbeth is contemptuous of his change of heart, and accuses him of cowardice. “and live a coward in thine own esteem”. she then goes on to manipulate him again and says, “look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent beneath it”
They argue, but Macbeth agrees to go ahead with the murder. During this episode is in full control of herself and also her husband, which implies that she is the main character in the role of killing King Duncan.
Macbeth then hallucinates, and imagines a bloody dagger leading him to the direction of King Duncan’s bedroom. He follows it and finds the King’s guards unconscious on the floor. Lady Macbeth has done this when she drugged their wine.
He kills the guards, and goes to his wife. When she realises that the murder is done, her mood is bold, and she boasts how she has drugged the guards, “his two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so convince that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason is limbeck only.”
However, Macbeth is obsessed by noises he has heard, and is lost in terrifying guilt. The fact that he cannot speak ‘Amen’ and the fact that, even the ‘ocean’ cannot clean him, suggest a state of total damnation.
However, Lady Macbeth is once again entirely in control of herself and Macbeth. She planned the execution.
In Macbeth, the witches are evil and create a sense of mystery. According to them, ‘fair is foul, and foul is fair’. the information they give to Macbeth in scene 1 entice him to evil. This shows that they too have an important role to play in the killing of King Duncan. However, although they tempt Macbeth, they do not invite him to murder Duncan, or even suggest such a thing. The supernatural backdrop to the play intensifies our sense of evil, but does not dictate events. Macbeth is a free agent and has free will. Macbeth has chosen his course of action, which leads me to believe Macbeth himself is partly to blame for Duncan’s killing.
At this point we need to refer to Banquo who also encounters the witches, and their prophecies. It is the reaction to these prophecies which provides the starkest contrasts between him and Macbeth. He sees how dangerous such prophecies might be, “what can the devil speak true?” and how they might ‘win us to our harm’. He resists the temptation to do evil, whereas Macbeth is tempted immediately by the witches’ words, “If chance will have me king, why chance may crown without any stir.”
Macbeth’s first words, “so foul and fair a day I have not seen” echo the witches words, and suggest he is already in tune with their way of thinking.
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and as illustrated above, no one is solely responsible for the killing of king Duncan, although some may be more to blame than others. My opinion is that lady Macbeth is mostly to blame because, she has manipulated Macbeth in to it so much, he has had not much choice at all.
