To What Extent is Lady Macbeth responsible for her Husband's Assassination of King Duncan?
To What Extent is Lady Macbeth responsible for her Husband's Assassination of King Duncan?
The audience's interpretation as to who is to blame for the assassination of Kind Duncan is first determined after Act 1 and 2 are complete. Lady Macbeth's ability to influence her husband leads the audience to believe that she is purely to blame for King Duncan's death. However, simply blaming Lady Macbeth is unfair as it ignores the fact that Macbeth originally created the initial plan to kill King Duncan and should therefore be partially responsible.
Throughout the play, Macbeth is constantly given the opportunity of choice. He primarily thought of the idea of killing King Duncan but he is seen to be debating his thoughts thoroughly during the play. As this plan first came from Macbeth we must partially blame him. However, due to his moral conscience which lies within him, he considers both sides to his plan and decides that it is wrong to kill King Duncan until his manipulative wife becomes involved.
Macbeth fights nobly for the King. He is valiant and brave. He is seen as ferocious and barbaric as he fights so courageously in war. This is his public persona which is portrayed at the beginning of the play;
"CAPTAIN: As sparrow's eagles, or the hare of a lion."
This shows us his predatory nature, power and skill as the battlefield is highlighted amongst the captain, Duncan and others. As this simile can be seen as a compliment, we may begin to feel that Macbeth is admired by many. Lions and eagles can be seen as powerful and beautiful creatures and he is being compared to them. However, dramatic irony is used as we, the audience, know that Macbeth will use his heroic hands for murder, yet others do not know this, including Macbeth himself at this point in the play. This specific lines sets up his predatory ways and prepares us for his later murderous way in which he will act.
Macbeth and Banquo stumble upon three mysterious Witches. They all deliver predictions of the future; they predict that Macbeth will soon become Thane of Cawdor and then finally King. When <Macbeth is told of these predictions his initial reaction is one of fear and interest. Perhaps the Witches have opened up or brought to our attention a new power seeking Macbeth. This suggests a sense of evil which is beginning to grow in Macbeth. He is uneasy about the predictions given to him. Banquo is the first of the two to speak. He realizes Macbeth's response to the Witches and asks why he is so scared;
"BANQUO: Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
things that do sound so fair?...
Of noble having, and of royal hope
That he seems rape withal."
Banquo is asking Macbeth to explain his thoughts and feelings towards the Witches previous predictions. He notices that Macbeth is somehow 'in his own world.' He is excited and curious; perhaps the predictions have awoken a burning ambition within Macbeth. Macbeth immediately begins to conjure up a plan in order to kill the king. His murderous thoughts shock him and prove to us just how evil his thoughts and the private Macbeth can really be, "stay you imperfect speakers, tell me more." Macbeth is desperate wanting to hear more from these strange Witches, he is fascinated to hear more about his power. He is ambitious for power and curious to hear more;
"THIRD WITCH: Thou shalt get kings, thought thou be none.
So all hail Macbeth and Banquo!"
By the Witches ordering everyone to hail Macbeth and Banquo, Macbeth begins to feel threatened. His power will one day be no more. Banquo's children will one day become king and this frightens Macbeth. Banquo is extremely pleased for Macbeth and is open and honest, yet Macbeth is secretly power seeking. Macbeth is secretly obsessed as he knows that the first prophecy has come true, therefore the second one must come true too. "all hail Macbeth, hail to thee, ...
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"THIRD WITCH: Thou shalt get kings, thought thou be none.
So all hail Macbeth and Banquo!"
By the Witches ordering everyone to hail Macbeth and Banquo, Macbeth begins to feel threatened. His power will one day be no more. Banquo's children will one day become king and this frightens Macbeth. Banquo is extremely pleased for Macbeth and is open and honest, yet Macbeth is secretly power seeking. Macbeth is secretly obsessed as he knows that the first prophecy has come true, therefore the second one must come true too. "all hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!" This is the first prediction and it had already been proved correct, so why should Macbeth doubt these mysterious women? However, could it have been chance?
Macbeth is seen to be talking to himself and the audience. He is allowing us to hear his private thoughts and is therefore portraying his private reputation. He is uncertain of the Witches." This supernatural soliciting/ Cannot be ill, cannot be good." However, he questions his murderous thoughts and cannot believe all that has happened;
"MACBETH: why do I yield to that suggestion,
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair."
By announcing to himself and to us, the audience that he believes his murderous thoughts are 'horrid' we can see there is a sympathetic side to Macbeth. He is quietly debating with himself and is disgusted with himself and his own thoughts. He is not able to carry out these murderous acts and thoughts. However, once Lady Macbeth has heard about them she takes control and her manipulative ways are portrayed. There seems to be a constant battle within Macbeth between evil and good (innocence.) He has to reassure himself in order to calm himself slightly
"MACBETH: (aside) If chance will have me King, why chance may crown me"
This proves the doubt within Macbeth. He believes that if fate made him naturally King of Cawdor then surely it will allow him to naturally become overall King. All of these thoughts are independent of Lady Macbeth and are undoubtedly uncertain. He is undecided. This therefore is evidence which proves Lady Macbeth to be a huge force which pushes Macbeth to kill King Duncan.
Lady Macbeth reads a letter which her husband has sent her, the letter contains details of the previous encounter with the witches and the forth coming events involving King Duncan. In Lady Macbeth's soliloquy we hear her ambition driving her towards the murder. She is already planning how to overcome the humane sides of Macbeth's nature by pouring her spirits into his ear in her unnatural prayer;
'That my keen knife see not the would it makes,"
Lady Macbeth asks evil spirits to take away any empathy she contains. She wishes to be somehow dehumanized to enable her to commit the murder without feeling guilt or compassion. Her mother instincts which are built naturally within her are to be taken away by these evil spirits;
'LADY MACBETH: come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty."
Her wishes are somehow reminiscent of the witches chant first seen at the beginning of the play. There is a sense of urgency and determination within her speech and her ruthless ambition is portrayed to us.
"LADY MACBETH: take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief."
The constant alliteration of 'm' and the use of sibilance creates a chant-like effect, it makes her speech hypnotic. It is as if she has taken the role of her husband. Females are to have sympathy and be full of kindness as they are full of motherly love, however, the audience may be shocked to see that the primary role of women has been over run by the evil spirits she had provoked previously. A Jacobean audience would expect a women to nurture children however, Lady Macbeth has been replaced by a poison filled witch-like female.
When Macbeth arrives, Lady Macbeth is seen to take control of the situation, she has already added to the plan, which Macbeth originally created to assassinate King Duncan. Lady Macbeth fears that Macbeth may be too mild to seize the throne. He has already been seen to speculate and weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of killing King Duncan and this worries Lady Macbeth. She recognizes that Macbeth is not without ambition but is cowardly. This can be seen as ironic as Macbeth murdered many so ferociously in war.
"LADY MACBETH: Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it."
Lady Macbeth is dominant and cool headed. She is very persuasive and takes control. It is as if Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have swapped their moral views and actions;
"LADY MACBETH: Look like th'innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't."
The use of the word serpent gives a biblical reference to the devil which tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden in the Bible. The devil represents evil. Macbeth is tempted just like Eve by the devil that Lady Macbeth can be seen as. Serpents are snakes and therefore make a hissing noise, perhaps this explains the sibilance found previously in her soliloquy;
'LADY MACBETH: Leave all the rest to me."
This determines just how dominant Lady Macbeth is. She has taken Macbeths initial plan and justified it to enable them to commit murder without being caught. This proves to us that not only is Macbeth to blame for the plan but Lady Macbeth is also mainly to blame as she let her ambition take control of herself and Macbeth.
Macbeth is next seen to be contemplating the moral consequences of murder. This proves to us that Macbeth's moral conscience allows him to keep level-headed and also allows him to consider the idea of murder. Lady Macbeth does not allow Macbeth to surrender to his moral conscience and empathy. She bullies him into murder, by taunting him and attacking his manhood. She labels him a coward and says the only way to prove his manhood is to kill King Duncan;
"LADY MACBETH: art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour,
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem 'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem."
Here, Lady Macbeth is seen to attack Macbeth from all sides. He is weakened and beaten to her mould in which she wishes him to become. Lady Macbeth then goes on to give an analogy of her cowardly husband. She says that if she said she would kill her baby to Macbeth she would have done it. This is said to make Macbeth feel guilty;
"LADY MACBETH: I have given suck, and know
How tender't is to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this."
This statement is grotesque and brutal. This reveals a gruesome Lady Macbeth; perhaps this part of her has always been there and has only now surfaced for Macbeth and our attention. Her ambition takes control. This contrasts immensely with the carefully contrived and eloquent language she used earlier in the play to address King Duncan;
"To make their audit at your Highness' pleasure."
Lady Macbeth is still cool-headed and her ability to act falsely in front of her next murder victim shows us, the audience, just how contrived she is. Lady Macbeth is not the Jacobean ideal of womanhood.
The apparition of the dagger which Macbeth sees in front of him before the murder is committed symbolizes his guilty conscience. This is shown even before the deed has been committed. His fears and doubts are shown greatly through this vision. He believes that committing this deed is unnatural and he begins to become unstable;
"MACBETH is this a dagger which I see before me
The handle toward my hand?"
A Jacobean audience would recognize the dagger was some kind of temptation. Macbeth is tormented with images of blood and fear of the unknown, we almost feel sympathy for him yet we must still remember he has the choice to go back and forget the plan which he originally created, however the murder still continues. In a sense, Macbeth has to somehow go against his own nature in order to carry out the murder. Macbeth is paranoid people will hear him committing the murder. He is a nervous wreck. This vision contrasts immensely with Macbeth's fearlessness in war.
The murder is carried out; however, afterwards Macbeth feels remorse and is riddled with guilt after the murder. He is hysterical and there is an imbalanced state of mind. Macbeth is in no shape or form to be proud of himself. He is nervous and unstable but Lady Macbeth still takes charge. Yet, do we see Lady Macbeth breaking apart, when Macbeth returns from his murderous acts, their conversation is disjointed and short. It is as if they are both nervous and are panic stricken.
"LADY MACBETH: did not you speak?
MACBETH: When?
LADY MACBETH: Now.
MACBETH: As I descended?"
Macbeth feels that what he has just committed is out of character and is seeking remorse immediately.
"MACBETH: Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incardine,
Making the green one red."
This metaphor portrays the idea that Macbeth will always fell guilty about his murder and it will always feel that King Duncan's blood is on his hands. Therefore there is not enough water which will was away his sins. The water in the sea will turn red due to the amount of blood which he has upon him; this blood can be seen as a symbol of his guilt. The water is a symbol of purity and he wished to be cleansed with it. Macbeth is trying to repent and wishes he had never committed the murder;
"MACBETH: Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst."
This line proves to us just how Macbeth is feeling the guilt which has swept over him.
Later on Macbeth is seen to become a corrupt tyrant. He has hardened once again, and when he is forced to kill again he believes that he's killed before and theres no going back so he might as well carry on with the murder. The primary damage has already occurred and he got away with it;
"MACBETH: Stepped in so far, that should I wade no more,
Returning were so tedious as go o'er"
Overall, Lady Macbeth is seen as the manipulative one, and Macbeth is portrayed as weak and vulnerable. However, Macbeth can also be seen as evil as he came up with the initial plan, this we must not forget. Although it may be argued that Lady Macbeth may be seen as a supportive wife she is clearly manipulative and the blame for the murder should be shared between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as this is fair and reasonable.
GCSE English Coursework- Katie Hooper
