Throughout the play, various characters intertwine and bring about the death of Duncan and Macbeths downfall. There are 3 primary characters who I feel influence Macbeth committing regicide and therefore his downfall. They are the 3 witches, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth himself.
The witches were very influential of Macbeth’s downfall. This is because they were the first people to meet Macbeth on his journey home from winning his battle against Norway, and they began putting ideas into his head:
“All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis. All hail Macbeth,
hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor. All hail Macbeth, thalt shall be king hereafter”.
Macbeth took the greeting from the witches very seriously, but his curiosity and determination became even stronger when he received the news that he was actually “Thane of Cawdor”. This made Macbeth believe that what the witches had said to him was slowly coming true and that they were able to predict the future. The fact that the witches may have predicted Macbeth’s future would have been very believable to an Elizabethan audience. Shakespeare paints the witches as being evil, devilish and malevolent by using language such as, “fog”, “filthy” and “hover”. He does this because back in the time when Macbeth was written, witches were believed to be very bad and almost sent by the devil and many people who were believed to be involved in witchcraft were burned at the stake and killed. The witches also said things to Macbeth which made him believe that he was invincible such as:
“None of women born shall harm Macbeth”, “Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him”.
“Hectate”, the goddess of witchcraft, tell the witches:
“Your vessels and your spells provide your charms and everything beside”.
This would make an Elizabethan audience believe that the witches were casting spells on Macbeth and that they were therefore the cause of Duncan’s death and Macbeth’s downfall. The audience would have probably believed that all the things Macbeth saw, like Banquo’s ghost and the dagger pointing towards him, and all the terrible events that happened, such as Lady Macbeth dying, were caused by spells which had been cast upon Macbeth by the witches. Although the witches didn’t have a very direct influence on Duncan’s murder and Macbeth’s downfall, they still triggered Macbeth’s determination to become king by telling him things that slowly came true. Because many people nowadays don’t believe in the supernatural, the influence of the witches and their spells and curses are a lot less believable but they would have been hugely believed by almost all Elizabethan audiences.
I also feel that Lady Macbeth had a huge influence on Macbeth and therefore contributed to the murder of king Duncan and Macbeth’s downfall. This is because she was very close to him and Lady Macbeth was obviously the more powerful in the relationship:
“That I may pour mine spirits in your ear and chastise with the
valour of my tongue all that impedes thee from the golden round”.
Lady Macbeth spurred Macbeth on and convinced Macbeth to commit regicide and kill king Duncan by always questioning his manhood, she tells him that he’s not a brave man and he’s a coward:
“When you durst do it, then you were a man. And to be more than
what you were , you would be so much more the man”.
