The second reason to why Macbeth carried out the murders, Macbeth is encouraged to kill Duncan by his ambitious wife Lady Macbeth, but Macbeth is then stimulated by fate, and at last by impulse to carry out his next chain of perverse crimes. When Macbeth sent a letter to lady Macbeth, an indication of the influence in Lady Macbeth already exerted on his life and it informed her of what was said by the three disreputable witches about him becoming thane of Cawdor before Duncan enrolled him then become the king of Scotland. This gave her the inspiration she would carry out the murder of King Duncan herself without any assistance if Macbeth declined. In act one scene five Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy “The raven himself is hoarse, that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan” this is saying the king is will be murdered by an incurable stab wound.
A passage said in the soliloquy by lady Macbeth “Come you spirits, that tend on moral thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood, stop up Th’ access and passage to remorse”, this is telling that evil spirits are within Lady Macbeth and she would use them to carry out the murder of Duncan herself. When she said “Unsex me here” she wanted to remove her feminine guile, so she may be possessed with man’s ability to perpetrate evil she was demanding that her femininity would change to a man, from her head to the feet with the dominance of evil in her mind and spreading around the body if Macbeth isn’t ‘man’ enough to kill. Macbeth is not fascinated to carry out the murder of Duncan as he keeps stepping away from the subject and says to Lady Macbeth in act one scene seven “He’s here in double trust, First, as I am his kinsman, and his subject, strong both against the deed then his host, who should against his murtherer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself”. This shows that he is struggling with his conscience is saying that king Duncan has trusted Macbeth as a kinsman and he couldn’t bear the knife to murder Duncan, it would ruin him.
Lady Macbeth discusses with him in the conversation about how and who will carry out the murder but Macbeth says in act two scenes five “We will proceed no further in this business: he hath honoured me of late and I have thought golden opinions from all sorts of people which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon”. Here Macbeth attempts to disagree with his wife, but Lady Macbeth berates her husband for his lack of conviction. Apparently through the night, Macbeth’s intentions suddenly change after knowing he would be king and much happier, so he decides to carry out the murder of King Duncan when he goes to bed, not planned out and without any doubt. When the vicinity is clear he proceeds towards king Duncan’s room and is distracted by an imaginative weapon and says in act two scene one, “Is this a dagger I see before me, the handle towards my hand? Come, let me clutch thee I have thee not, and yet I see thee still”, In this paragraph Macbeth’s actions are to grab the handles of the imaginary daggers but they are ghostly. Macbeth’s is addressing the dagger as ‘thee’ because he is personifying the dagger, as though he is trying to touch his ambition, he is accepting or possibly rejecting his task.
Lady Macbeth drugs Duncan’s guard’s drinks to make them fall unconscious then she takes their daggers to fabricate evidence on them so that Macbeth does not have to be the responsible murderer, then he goes into Duncan’s chamber and carries out the assassination. Once he has carried out the deed and brought back the blood stained daggers and lady Macbeth gets very curious to why did he bring them, she takes the daggers and ‘plants’ them onto the unconscious guards who are unaware of what’s happened. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have blood stained hands and have to wash it away, ”A little water cleans us of this deed ” says lady Macbeth because others might find out Macbeth is the real murderer. The next day Macduff discovers the corpse of the king and alerts his two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain and they decide they’ll have to flee for safety, as they don’t want to be the next victims. Macbeth is now aired to the throne and become king of Scotland and now we realise why Duncan’s murdered, Macbeth wanted to become the king of Scotland but referring back to the third witches prophecy, he is starting to concern himself with the witches’ prophecies that Banquo would be the ancestor to a line of kings and Macbeth would’nt.
In conclusion I think it is clear the witches mostly portray evil in Macbeth. Not only are the witches evil themselves but their evilness spreads to other characters throughout the play. I think there is little doubt that without the influence of the witches, Macbeth wouldn’t have murdered king Duncan.
