Responsibility Of A Guilty Mind In Macbeth By William Shakespeare

In Act 2, Scene 2 of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, a crime was committed. That crime was the murder of the generous and well-respected King Duncan. The witches, Lady Macbeth, and Macbeth all shared some responsibility in the murder. To decide which character out of the three was legally responsible they must have possessed both elements of a guilty crime, the actus reus and the mens rea. Actus reus means the “guilty act” and it represents the physical crime, while the mens rea is the “guilty mind”, or the intention behind the crime. If both the guilty act and guilty mind are not proven, a person cannot be held as legally responsible for their crime. Therefore, the question that must be answered is who out of the Witches, Lady Macbeth, and

She used manipulation tactics such as questioning Macbeth’s masculinity, which convinced him to commit the murder out of a need to prove himself. This can be proven in Act 1, Scene 7 when Lady Macbeth says to Macbeth “When you durst do it, then you were a man” (Shakespeare, Act 1, Scene 7), saying that he would only be a man when he killed King Duncan. Lady Macbeth possessed the actus rea of the murder as well, as she was the one who decided on the plan of how to kill the king, which made her an accomplice to the guilty act. She was also the one who planted the knives on the guard after the murder, making her more of an accomplice. Overall, while Lady Macbeth herself did not King Duncan, it was her actions that influenced Macbeth to kill him. Therefore, Lady Macbeth can be seen as more legally responsible than the

Macbeth can be seen as legally responsible for the murder, as it has been proven that possessed both the actus reus and mens rea of the crime. Despite Macbeth’s guilt being proven, Lady Macbeth and the Witches were not innocent either. Had they not interfered, Macbeth would never have thought of murdering the King Duncan. After Macbeth committed the murder, he was in such a distraught state that he forgot to place the knife on the guards. Macbeth’s disturbed state is such a stark contrast from how he was originally described in Act 1, Scene 2, “For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name) disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel, which smok’d with bloody execution,” (Shakespeare, Act 1, Scene 2). Macbeth was supposed to be a hardened warrior, unfazed by the many soldiers he had killed, yet he was so affected when he killed one man. Through a psychological lens, it was likely that Macbeth suffered from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. His state after killing the king can be compared to a soldier coming back from battle, as he was so haunted by his actions. A person who always had the intention to kill would not have been so impacted, especially not a supposedly ‘ruthless’ solider. With this evidence, it is unlikely that without Lady Macbeth and the Witches’ influence that Macbeth would have committed the murder on his