The biggest question was Who was the ultimate villain; Macbeth or Lady Macbeth?

Authors Avatar by elisaehm (student)

Macbeth Essay:

                                By: Elisa Mangal

        The play ‘Macbeth’ was a different type of tragedy compared to Romeo & Juliet and 12th Night. The death of King Duncan was definitely no surprise to some characters in the play, because it was in fact planned. The biggest question was… Who was the ultimate villain; Macbeth or Lady Macbeth? After reading the entire play, it seems that Lady Macbeth was in face, the ultimate villain. Lady Macbeth had pushed her husband Macbeth to murder King Duncan, against his own will. After the murder took place, Lady Macbeth started to act very guilty, which practically made her go insane. Lastly, when Lady Macbeth passed away in Act 5, it seemed like Macbeth felt no remorse towards it. It was most-likely because he himself felt that everything was in fact, her fault.

        As soon as the play began, the plot to murder King Duncan started to form. It was no surprise that both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth wanted Duncan to die because if he did, Macbeth (Duncan’s nephew) would have a good chance at becoming king. Macbeth started to have the idea of the murder after his meeting with the prophecies. In Act 1-Scene 3 when Macbeth first got the idea for the murder, he was actually scared about the images that were going on in his head. When Lady Macbeth became aware of Macbeth’s idea in Act 1-Scene 5, she began to persuade him into going through with his plan. In her long speech, Lady Macbeth said, “- the catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great” (Act 1 Scene 5, Line 17). This meant that she wanted to use the direct path to get rid of Duncan, which in this case, was murder. In Act 1 Scene 7, Macbeth had actually decided that he was not going to murder Duncan, but Lady Macbeth quickly managed to insult Macbeth, and made rude comments about his manliness. This of course, made Macbeth insecure, and caused him to have second thoughts. She said, “And, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.” (Act 1-Scene 7, Line 50-51). She basically implied that if Macbeth were a real man, he would have no problem in killing the King. Macbeth then went through with the plan, and murdered Duncan. Now that Duncan had been murdered, Lady Macbeth should feel at ease, right?

Join now!

        When Macbeth brought the news of Duncan’s death to Lady Macbeth, the readers can quickly see that she was very paranoid. After Lady Macbeth hurried away to wash the daggers that Macbeth used to kill King Duncan, they both began to “see things”. It was evident that they were both paranoid that someone would find out that it was Macbeth who killed Duncan. After this incident, Lady Macbeth’s character changed juristically. In Act 5 Scene 1, Lady Macbeth starts to hallucinate even more than before. After the Macbeths had moved into Dunsinane’s Castle, more people began to worry about Lady ...

This is a preview of the whole essay