Who is the Most Responsible for the Death of Duncan, the witches, Lady Macbeth or Macbeth?

Lady Macbeth is also responsible for the death of Duncan. She is introduced first reading a letter sent by Macbeth to inform her of his battle and of his confrontation by the witches. In the letter Macbeth doesn’t even say anything about killing King Duncan. But straight away she says ‘shalt be what thou art promised’ which means that no one will get in the way. She knows that he is soft ‘It is full o the milk of human kindness’ but she also knows that he has a lot ambition ‘…art not without ambition’, so she wants to influence him to kill King Duncan. It is interesting to see how desperate she is, attacking her husband where she knows it will insult him; accusing him of being a coward, questioning his manhood and challenging him – her strength of purpose and leadership are a contrast to Macbeth. As she is quite strong-willed and ambitious, she immediately has thoughts about it and reveals them in her soliloquy. She is then told by her messenger that Duncan will be staying at the castle that night, which is when she then shows her evil intentions in another soliloquy just before Macbeth arrives. She says, “…that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements” and “O never shall sun that morrow see!” Both of these quotes show that she is very keen to murder Duncan and to become king, and that she is already taking control. In between the above quotes she says “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty.” This implies that she wants her female feelings to be replaced with her evil intentions. But as she said that she would kill Duncan if he did not resemble her father, it shows that she still has a little compassion, “…I laid their daggers ready; he could not miss ‘em. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t.” After Lady Macbeth had started to effectively take over, Macbeth could have stopped her from putting her own evil intentions into his head, but he was too overpowered by his wife to do so. Every time Macbeth tried to confer with his wife she would cut him off and continue to persuade him. We are then shown that it has had an effect on Macbeth as he then says, “If we should fail?” She then replies with “We fail!” Implying that there is no way that they will fail and that Macbeth knows that Lady Macbeth will be furious if he does not carry out what he has promised to her. She then continues to tell him about how, where and when they shall act.

It is a very common thought that Macbeth is made to kill Duncan but in the end it is down to his lack of will power because no one physically forced him to murder Duncan. In the first place, when Macbeth is confronted by three witches, they hadn’t actually said anything until Macbeth asks whether or not they can speak and asks what they are. The witches then reply with the three wild predictions, which first put the idea of him being king into Macbeth’s head, or could just be bringing to the surface suppressed ambition. But the witches don’t tell him what to do; he and his wife put those other ideas into Macbeths head. This is shown after when Lady Macbeth is essentially briefing him on what he should do he says, “We will speak further.” This shows that he does have the ability and the strength to not allow himself to be manipulated by Lady Macbeth, but instead his conscience is too great to do stop her and allows himself to be poisoned by the evil words of his wife.

We know that Macbeth is weak minded because at first Macbeth, although fascinated ‘with such prophetic greeting’, relies on his ‘dearest partner of greatness’ to persuade him. We see that he consults Lady Macbeth with a letter about what had happened with the witches and their predictions, this shows us that he looks up to her. Lady Macbeth is always in charge as she creates a plan to kill Duncan and how they will frame it on the guards discerned by “his two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so convince that memory”. He lets her persuade him instead of standing in the way to stop. As we can see he does not want to the murder, he is scared. He never refers to the killing as murder he always calls it a “deed”. He knows about the divine right of kings and is also terrified by this “whose horrid image doth unfix my hair” but in the end he doesn’t care about it because of his overload of ambition.

 Macbeth in one scene decides that he won’t commit murder but at the end of the scene he says he will do it. Lady Macbeth is not present at the start, but Macbeth is and has a soliloquy. In this he gives three reasons why he shouldn’t kill King Duncan. He says that he would feel guilty, Duncan is a great man and he should help him instead of assassinating him. The last is that if he commits the deed it will “plague the inventor”. When Lady Macbeth enters he exclaims that “We will proceed no further in this business.” Lady Macbeth then says that she won’t accept his love anymore and then says that she would kill her own baby. He then changes his mind and states “If we should fail?” then Lady Macbeth gives Macbeth the plan, Macbeth finally accepts but regrets what he is doing “I am settled; and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat.” This shows how Macbeth is easily convinced by his wife.

Lady Macbeth controls him into killing Duncan, by preying on his fear of being seen to be a coward, and Macbeth, foolishly, accepts her argument, rather than standing up for what his conscience tells him is the honourable thing to do.

In the play there are a lot of soliloquies, these are mostly used by Macbeth. A soliloquy gives us an insight on the psychology of a character and it makes us conscious of determination and development of the characters thought.

So, in my opinion it is mainly Lady Macbeth who is the driving force to kill Duncan. Macbeth and the witches were also responsible, but in my opinion they played a smaller role in Duncan’s murder. Lady Macbeth forces Macbeth to do the deed using various methods. Macbeth is too soft against Lady Macbeth and should have stood up for himself a lot more in the play. Also the whole idea of becoming king is formed by Macbeth but the whole idea of murder is formed by the wicked mind of Lady Macbeth.

In conclusion, I think Macbeth’s ambition is natural. The witches are a source of his evil. They target him from the beginning of the play, although he can ignore them and their prophecies. Nevertheless he wouldn’t have carried out the murder if he wasn’t pushed and persuaded by Lady Macbeth. He trusts and relies on her. Macbeth has a choice of repelling her, but he is too weak. It is evident therefore, that whilst Macbeth acted out the murder physically, the influence of Lady Macbeth has a major part to play for the murder of King Duncan.