’s Evil Doings. Essay, Research Paper
Lady Macbeth is responsible for Macbeth’s evil doings?
The tale of Macbeth itself is a power struggle between the powers of good and evil and how evil results from the human lusts for wealth and power. A good part of the evil in the play is embodied in the character of Lady Macbeth as the instigator of murder. Lady Macbeth is a complex woman of the sixteenth century. In Shakespeare s play Macbeth she is many things wrapped in one person, she is, kind, delicate, wife, murderess, ambitious, manipulating, evil.
One of the motivations for inciting the murder was her own ambition to be Queen. At some points Lady Macbeth seems to be more power driven the Macbeth himself does. When she get the letter telling off the meeting with the witches and reads the line ” Hail, King that shalt be” her thought turn straight to murder the murder of good king Duncan, in order rise her self and her husband to the throne. Yet Lady Macbeth fears that her husbands nature: “It is too full o the milk of human-kindness”. For he to commit the crime.
In this scene Lady Macbeth also fears Macbeth lack of wickedness, ” Thou wouldst be great; art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it”. After considering this Lady Macbeth say that she will convince Macbeth of the doing to the evil deed., “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.” Lady Macbeth has decided here that Macbeth dose not have enough evil in him to gain the crown through foul deeds so she will convince him with her tongue.
Then Lady Macbeth prays to be unsexed so she can stomach the deeds she has set before her self.
Although Macbeth is the committer of murder Lady Macbeth is the instigator of murder, though her hand did not guide the dagger her harsh words drove it s point in. When Macbeth was thinking of not going through with the murder of Duncan ” we will proceed no further in this business”, Lady Macbeth was there driving him back on task by attacking his manhood.” And live a coward in thine own esteem” ” then you were a man”
(When he thought of killing Duncan)” And to be more than what you were, you would be so much more a man.” (If Macbeth wanted to be more the man he must be brave enough to kill a king.) Later when Lady Macbeth is alone, she makes the statement that she would have killed the sleeping Duncan had he not looked like her father. This just proves that she isn t nearly as strong as she says and could not go through such a deed as which her pushed her husband too.
Lady Macbeth also shows her own ruthlessness in this scene saying that she would take a babe sucking on her breast and dash its brains. She says that if she promised him something, even if it was as awful as killing her newborn babe, she would do it. Despite the fact that he never made such a promise, Macbeth fails to realise that she is lying to him for her own gain. This shows how cold and calculating she is and t
Macbeth himself is not a very strong character; Lady Macbeth is the driving force, the brains behind the operation for Macbeth s initial murderous deed.
The witches are often considered the greatest embodiment of evil in the play. In Elizabethan times, witches were known as creatures of the devils; satanic creatures who roam the world to cause destruction and chaos. The element of evil in the witches can be excused for with their strange powers, bearded appearance and inhuman existence as they are supernatural instruments of fate and not of their choice.
Lady Macbeth has no such excuse for she is very human. Her more human side does not start to show through until later in the play and never in the presence of her husband.
One of the signs of Lady Macbeth s evil is that fact that she is childless. In the essay How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth by AC Knight, he remarked that, “Lady Macbeth s infertile status is part of the play’s greater symbolism, where evil is infertile and good is fertile”. This is also shown as the good Lady Macduff the wife of Macduff is fertile having her own children, which Macbeth s slaughters in the bloody siege of Macduff castle.
Much symbolism is used in the play Macbeth. The greatest symbol of Lady Macbeth s guilt is shown in blood. In the play, blood is the symbol that represents treason, murder and death. After Macbeth has committed the murder of the good king Duncan, he is horrified at the deed he just carried out through the promoting of his wife. Macbeth is over run with remorse and unable to complete the next task him self, so he give the two daggers to his wife who paints the faces of the two guards with blood as a sign of their guilt in the matter. “I’ll guild the faces of the grooms withal, for it must seem their guilt”. The next presence of blood for Lady Macbeth is in the admission of her own guilt where in the sleepwalking scene, she goes through the motions of washing her hands saying, “Out damned spot! Out, I say”. This is in reference to the blood that stained her hands after smearing it all over the guards. She also refers to Duncan’s murder saying, “Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him!” All these references are to murder and both include references to blood, again linking the blood to treachery and the murder she drove her husband to. There are constant references to the evil deeds that Macbeth and herself have committed, most of which include references to blood.
Lady Macbeth is clearly a very important charter in “Macbeth” Lady Macbeth though dose show remorse at the end of the play and kills her self. Lady Macbeth is the responsible instigator of murder, pushing Macbeth into committing murder for her own gain. The Murder of Duncan was the start of Macbeth evil doings, with out Lady Macbeth shove Macbeth would never have Killed Duncan, therefor Lady Macbeth is responsible for the murder of Duncan that the chain of events that followed thereafter.
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