Macbeth’s Wife is a source of us, the reader’s, sympathy for Macbeth in many instances. Macbeth writes a letter to Lady Macbeth explaining what has happened, and whilst reading the letter shows the first signs of her greed – with which she will push Macbeth to even murder, eventually tragedy; illness should attend it. Then Lady Macbeth commences considering what impedes thee from the golden round. As shown again, she desperately wants Macbeth to be crowned, but not in the far future but soon, and she calls upon the aids of sprits to help her in her quest for the throne. Lady Macbeth at this point seems to have more Regal ambition than Macbeth does. Lady Macbeth requests sprits that tend on mortal thoughts unsex her, and fill her with the worst severity. The supernatural world will aid her, like the witches, in the hardening of her heart, make it possible for her to carry out her malicious plan, and unknown to her…the downfall of Macbeth, which is another reason supporting why we feel a certain extent of sympathy for Macbeth. This is when she appeals to Macbeth with her idea of killing King Duncan. As said Macbeth has less ambition than his wife and she has a tough time persuading him to murder. Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth to act on his desires or he will think of himself as a coward, which to Macbeth as a great warrior is one of the worst things for brave Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth encourages Macbeth to look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it. Macbeth still doubts but Lady Macbeth has prepared for the evil act, and Macbeth goes ahead under this pressure from his other half – once again showing sympathy for Macbeth - although it was his weakness of character; being pressured in to it by his wife, and also his desire for Kingship, not just Lady Macbeth’s words of wisdom, in this case. Macbeth shows his first indications of madness, when he follows the dagger upstairs to the King’s bedroom is this a dagger which I see before me, let me clutch thee Macbeth proceeds in following it and kills Duncan. After Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth the deed is done and talks of his blood stained hands it seems that not only is he in conflict with his morals but also his state of mind. This is another defensive factor, which promotes a sense of sympathy for Macbeth’s final predicament, the fact that he is criminally insane – and therefore partly less penalised by the reader for his actions.
The witches are the other component in, to what extent I feel sympathy for Macbeth. Their portion of blame is shown first when Macbeth and Banquo meet them for the first time, they plant the seeds of evil by making a conflict of greed between two friends; All hail Macbeth, thou shalt be King hereafter to Macbeth, and to Banquo Thou shalt get Kings, though thou be none.
This evil is shown to be contagious, and therefore we feel sympathy for Macbeth. The witches by definition were the devils servants and were therefore evil, this was ‘caught’ by Macbeth, who in turn passed it onto his wife when he wrote the letter, which she read and therefore ‘caught’ it; this is shown cleverly in Lady Macbeth’s lines, Thou wouldst be great, art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it. In this speech illness is the analogy for evil, hence saying that the evil was like an illness. The speech also shows why we should feel sympathy for Macbeth, because he defencelessly caught the evil disease.
Only after Macbeth is named king, is his suffering and downfall caused primarily by him, in his own repression and (misled) resolve to take control of his future. The witches´ prophecy about Banquo´s descendants and Macbeth´s feeling of inferiority to Banquo led Macbeth to arrange for the murder of Banquo and his son Fleance (who flees). Macbeth states none but he [Banquo]…I do fear. Macbeth is driven further insane when Banquo’s ghost haunts him; Banquo reminds Macbeth of the evil deeds that he has committed.
A personal view would be that Macbeth’s tragedy was that he was a pawn to his wife’s motives and greed, and the witches evil and intent on making a tragedy; but that the witches and the supernatural drove both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to these evil deeds. The witches planted even developed the seeds of evil in Macbeth and the letter was what drove Lady Macbeth to evil. The Macbeths were a prosperous, happy, good and honoured couple until the witchcraft came along.
The only way I don’t feel sorry for Macbeth was how he managed to fall in to the witches’ trap. Macbeth, living in Protestant Scotland at the time, should have been more resilient to temptation. Maybe even asked God for strength or advice.
