The influence of the witches and Lady Macbeth on Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth plays a key role in influencing her husband to take the path that he does. Macbeth returns home and tells his wife that he is the Thane of Cawdor and she begins to try and persuade him to kill the king so that they can become King and Queen. At first Macbeth completely ignores his wife’s pleas to kill the king, but she then persuades Macbeth by accusing him of being a coward and saying that she would have murdered her child while it was feeding at her breast, rather than break such a promise Macbeth has done, “I would, while it was smiling in my face…plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash’d the brains out..” Macbeth again is shown to be unable to make decisions for himself and finally gives in to Lady Macbeth and agrees to kill Duncan. Without the influence of Lady Macbeth, Macbeth would never have begun to make a murder plan, but because her desire to become the queen was so great she convinced Macbeth to commit murder.

Near the end of the play Macbeth’s own mind influences him and he does many unreasonable things. He starts to lose his conscience when he sees that the Birnam Wood has moved to Dunsinane. At this point Macbeth is not living in reality anymore because everyone else at Dunsinane knows that the soldiers are carrying branches from the trees. This false sense of fate and power on his part is a major factor in his downfall. Macbeth loses his state of mind causing his ascension, his madness, and his demise.

Since the beginning of the play Macbeth has been under someone or something’s influence. He was influenced by the witches, next he was influenced by his wife, and finally, he was influenced by his own mind. Throughout the play Macbeth does ignorant things that end up killing him because he let other people persuade him. Every person relies on the influences of those around him or her in order to form conceptions and decisions.