In my opinion, I see lady Macbeth as a very strange character, because if my wife told me that she wanted to kill someone, I would certainly not try to encourage her to do it. I would have expected her to refuse Macbeth to kill King Duncan.
“Yet do I fear thy nature,
It is too full o…”(Lady Macbeth)
I would say that her behavior adds to the interest of the play. Lady
Macbeth gets very excited about Macbeth becoming King, so she manipulates and persuades him to go ahead with the murder. This again shows us how Macbeth is easily manipulated, even though there is a slight possibility that he may be following his own ambitions, but I would say that he would not have committed her murder if the witches or lady Macbeth didn’t influence him.
This also shows when Macbeth forgets to hide the daggers after committing the murder, it shows that he makes mistakes under pressure and that he could not have done it last lady Macbeth covering for him. He gets upset and changed his mind when lady Macbeth questioned his masculinity; this again supports the fact that he could not have murdered the King by himself.
Macbeth gets upset when lady Macbeth questioned his masculinity because he takes a lot of pride in being manly, he doesn't like to be seen as otherwise.
Macbeth appears to slowly be going mad due to the guilt and pressure placed upon him. He begins to see images of daggers and imagines young Malcolm being crowned King, etc. this again proves that Macbeth doesn’t have a strong enough mind to go through the murder without any assistance.
“Is this a dagger…”(Macbeth)
Macbeth also ‘sees’ the ghost of Banquo at the dinner table who haunts him and drives him even more insane. In all his madness, Macbeth doesn’t realize all his mistakes, he thinks that he is invincible due to what the witches had told him, and he did not even think that there might be a catch. Also, he became so crazy that he forgot about his wife, lady Macbeth was suffering but Macbeth did not spend enough time with her.
I would say that being King is an Honorable gift, but where is the honor if you have committed so many sins just to get there? Also, now that Macbeth has become evil, its not really a good thing that he has become King, due to the fact that he has killed innocent children and families shows that he won’t hesitate to kill anyone in his kingdom that he doesn’t like.
Also of course the fact that he is no longer in his right mind to make proper decisions like a king should.
“O! full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!”(Macbeth)
And people may take advantage of Macbeth’s weaknesses, and use him to their own benefits. I think that Macbeth doesn’t have what it takes to be king, he would not rule with honor, respect and fairness, only fear, terror, jealousy and hatred. Macbeth is a very power thirsty person but is not able to deal with so much power. And also, people in his kingdom already suspect him, and don’t seem to like him very much.
“Some say he’s mad: other, that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury…”(Cath)
Macbeth very clearly changes his role throughout the play. His most obvious change is from brave, heroic and loyal to evil, murderous and insane. Other small changes in Macbeth are confused, guilty, powerful and cold hearted. We cannot say that Macbeth is simply weak, or he is simply just evil, because I think that he becomes evil because of his weaknesses – such as being too easily persuaded/manipulated, and having a weak mind. And so Macbeth’s characteristics develop into evilness because he was weak to start off with.
I think that Macbeth was unable to control himself in terms of making his own decisions; I think that all this talk of power and becoming king got to his head and drove him crazy, making him unable to really focus on what he was doing. Therefore I see Macbeth as the character that was controlled by other characters in the play (Lady Macbeth, witches), and so does not have what it takes to become king. Macbeth shows himself to be very greedy for wealth and power, I mean being thane of is already a great honor yet it wasn’t enough for him, he wanted more and more, and this is what drove him to become such a ‘monster’ and eventually got him killed.
Jugal Vansia 11D
