Lady Macbeths Role in Duncans Murder - Essay Example

Damned Spot: Lady Macbeth’s Role in Duncan’s Murder (Or: Lady Macbeth is the real driving force behind the murder of Duncan) The role that Lady Macbeth plays in this most engaging of William Shakespeare’s plays is fundamental to the entire plot of the play. Here, an attempt will be made to examine the relationship between Lady Macbeth and her husband, in the light of the events that took place during those fateful days and nights at the castle. Macbeth had no notion or ambition in mind of ascending the throne of Scotland when he returns from battle in Ireland and Norway with Banquo by his side, at the beginning of the play. He has just vanquished the threatening enemy, feels victorious and filled with a sense of achievement. He is praised and made to feel successful. Discovering that Macbeth is a kinsman to the King Duncan, the audience learns of his bravery and ability on the fields of battle, but they see nothing yet of base envy, or of any desire to rule the country. His loyalty and respect for Duncan are not put into question. But the encounter with the witches plants the seeds of ambition and arrogance. Macbeth is silent while Banquo answers the witches. His mind is at work, and in his heart is growing the seed of evil. Elements of treachery enter the scene, and delusions of grandeur infiltrate where before there were none. ‘If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, / Without my stir.’(Act I, Sc 3). Still, he does not exactly leave it to chance, even if he thinks he does not have to do much. He puts the whole thing in a letter to his wife. From the apparition on the heath, desire for power has entered the credulous thane’s spirit, like a curse cast on completion of a successful battle. All of a sudden, being a respected thane is not enough. Through the fateful flaw of being gullible, and believing tenuous predictions, Macbeth is spellbound. This gullibility leads him to ignore his formerly good conscience and become obsessed with gaining what he had previously not even considered for a moment to be rightfully his: ‘to be king / Stands not within the prospect of belief,’ (Act I, Sc 3). Bewitched, he ruminates repeatedly on the prospect of authority and power. The words he writes are tainted with the glimmer of his new-found ambition. He calls Lady Macbeth ‘my dearest partner of greatness’ which perhaps furthers the spell cast by the witches. The curse travels inside a letter from Macbeth to his wife, who reads it, entranced. She cannot wait for Macbeth to return, so she can persuade him not to be so timid: ‘Hie thee hither, / That I may pour my spirits in thine ear; / And chastise with the valour of my tongue / All that impedes thee from the golden round.’(Act I Sc 5). She knows that so far, her husband has proved himself to be a good man, and fears he might be too nice to share her growing ambition. ‘Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be / What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness.’ (Act I Sc 5). What she wants is a share in that ‘greatness’. And she knows she will do anything to get it. She cannot believe her luck when she is told King Duncan is heading for the castle with Macbeth. Far from being honoured and pleased to be hosting such an important guest, who is her husband’s kinsman and their country’s monarch, she sees the dark magnitude of the event: this is her chance. Her head fills with a deadly scheme. Although there is no word of treachery or murder in the letter, it is actually what started it all off. She asks the spirits to thicken her blood and fill her with murderous strength. It is instant, as if the spell overcomes her during the little time it takes for her to read the words. By the time Macbeth comes home, she is bloodthirsty and determined. Macbeth tells her the king will only be with them one night. It escalates: she instantaneously sees that her opportunity to wrest the throne for her husband, and reflected glory for herself, is very narrow. They have to act right away. Cold evil seizes her heart and she tells Macbeth to leave it to her. This depicts her character as opportunistic, reckless and impulsive. She greets the king with a lot of hypocrisy, already wearing a duplicitous mask. These are the actions of an underhanded schemer. Not only that, she rings in Macbeth into her murderous plan. But he will have none of it. ‘He’s here in double trust;/ First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,/ Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,/ Who should against his murderer shut the door,/ Not bear the knife myself.’ (Act I, Sc 7). Still, he lies to Banquo when his friend mentions the three witches. ‘I think not of them.’ The famous speech he makes before he hears the bell shows some confusion. But the bell marks his decision, and before he enters, he says the fateful words: ‘I go, and it is done; the bell invites me./ Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell.’ His king is as good as dead, his crazed wife has started it off. It is obvious Lady Macbeth will not be diverted from her route. She magnifies her womanhood by telling him she would stick to a promise to him no matter what, and would kill her own child if that was what she promised him: so he should equally be a man and carry out the plan, regardless of his fears and anxieties. He is no match for her vicious scheming. Questioning their plan only weakly, it is plain he will go along and stab the king, putting the daggers on the drunken guards to implicate them. Gullible, easily led, and blindly eager to achieve ‘greatness’ and be king, he has no more second thoughts. Poor King Duncan has no idea his subjects and hosts are so scheming and ambitious that they would stop at nothing to get rid of him. Thinking that Macbeth is loyal and true blue, since he had won so many battles on his behalf, he is trusting, as any man would, in the house of a dependable thane who previously showed himself to love the throne. How was he to know of the dark transformation that took place on the heath? How could he guess how Lady Macbeth would be seized by an instant evil streak, eager to see him dead so her husband would reign in his place? Macbeth had shown himself to be trustworthy: this change was unforeseeable. King Duncan could not possibly have envisaged the change in his faithful henchman. He is completely taken in by Lady Macbeth’s deceitful welcome. He says to her: ‘Give me your hand; / Conduct me to mine host: we love him highly,/ And shall continue our graces towards him./ By your leave, hostess.’ (Act I Sc 6) He allows himself to be led onward to his peril, completely in the dark. Until then, Macbeth had given him no cause to doubt him. Nor could he have predicted that a noblewoman would turn into a shrill and ruthless harridan who would mercilessly urge on her husband, aiding and abetting by making all the right noises and opening all the right doors. She unflinchingly drugs the King’s guards, saying that what she gave them to send them into a drunken stupor must have been very strong: ‘That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;/ What hath quench’d them hath given me fire.’ (Act II Sc 2) She tasted whatever she gave them, and it urged her on, making her more audacious. The same woman who would not kill the king herself because he looked like her father as he slept takes the bloody daggers from her murderous husband’s hands and plants them near the drugged guards, so they would be blamed. ‘Infirm of purpose!/ Give me the daggers:’ Her ambition blinds her to the idiocy of her deed, and to the jumpiness of Macbeth, who is rattled by what he has done. He looks at the blood on his hands and has a moment’s remorse, but his wife mocks him: ‘A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.’(Act II Sc 2) It is fear and rage that drive him to further bloody his hands by killing the guards in a pretended rage, as they protest their innocence. Although the audience does not see his slaughter, it is plain Macbeth is tainted with crime that brings on more crime. But he cannot hold back: his wife will goad him on. On the other hand, his wife pretends it is all too much for her, and fakes a fainting fit. She is carried away as the princes realise the danger and run away. They are right: the castle is a doomed location where more blood will be spilled. In conclusion, perhaps it is weakness in humans that gives them potential for hate, greed, cruelty, betrayal, and the awfulness of madness, which are explored in this play. King Duncan seems to be a poor judge of the ability of people to suddenly change character, which renders his murder too easy. Macbeth shifts from being a loyal thane to one who lusts the so-called greatest power: the paradox of emotional weakness and incredible ambition determine his tragic downfall. Lady Macbeth devised the assassination, manipulated Macbeth and goaded him when in doubt. Therefore there can be no doubt that Lady Macbeth is the real driving force behind the murder of Duncan. Sources cited: Shakespeare, William (1605) Macbeth Read More