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The Qualities Of Lady Macbeth In Homer's Iliad

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In the history of man, masculine traits and qualities have been directed towards good leaders. Such qualities as, lust, power, and callousness. In Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad the above-mentioned qualities are demonstrated. Leader and king of the Greek coalition, Agamemnon is ruthless and takes what he wants with no remorse. Agamemnon is considered to be strong and an honorable man. He sticks true to his beliefs and does not sway from them. Agamemnon wanted power. As a result, he united the many individual Greek states into one powerful force and directed it towards his neighboring rival: the city of Troy. Agamemnon then seized Troy and murdered all that stood in his way with no remorse (including King Priam). Agamemnon is the definition of a “man”. These qualities are also demonstrated in William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth. Set in 11th century Scotland, Thane Macbeth rules in the Scottish Highlands. Macbeth is viewed as honorable and …show more content…

However, this is not true. Lady Macbeth did not influence Macbeth into the thought of murdering his king. It was Macbeth’s own free will. Macbeth is the sole reason that all of this turmoil has happened, not Lady Macbeth. Yes, Lady Macbeth is conniving, but she did not play a significant role in the actual murder of the king. Lady Macbeth backs out of killing King Duncan because he looks like her father. This shows how weak minded Lady Macbeth is. She is not a “man”, but instead a coward. Macbeth has to proceed with the murder himself. As the readers can see, this is not the Lady Macbeth we see in the beginning of the play. She is not as bold as she was previously. He has enough bravery to actually commit the murder of King Duncan. He kills the two innocent guards. The acts have caused Macbeth to grow stronger while Lady Macbeth’s strength has regressed. As a result, Macbeth had committed all the acts to become a

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The Iliad by Homer The Iliad was a really good representation of the chaotic war-torn times of the area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea; this includes the countries Rome and Greece. It was a time where nations were trying to expand their power and influence and warriors were claiming their spoils of war. I mean the beginning of book I of The Iliad, Achilles and Agamemnon are arguing over the rewards and the spoils of war. Agamemnon didn’t want to give up his prize girl Chryses in order to please the God Apollo and stop the plague and the rain of arrow falling from Olympus.

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The powerful influence that Lady Macbeth has over Macbeth was so strong that it caused Macbeth to murder more than just King Duncan. Lady Macbeth uses strong words convince Macbeth it is ok to kill people. Right after the King dies, Lady Macbeth states, “My Hands are color, but I

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At the beginning of William Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ the protagonist Macbeth is described as ‘brave’, ‘noble’ and ‘honourable’, however Lady Macbeth’s and Macbeths desire for power consumes them. Macbeth’s ambition overrides his conscience and transformed his greatest strength into his greatest weakness. Macbeth’s inability to resist temptations that led him to be greedy for power, Macbeth’s easily manipulative nature which allowed his mind to be swayed, Macbeth having no self control and his excessive pride was what allowed him to renew his previously honourable and celebrated title into one of an evil ‘tyrant’. Macbeth is led by the prophecies of the witches after they foretell he will become the Thane of Cawdor. Not only the witches, but also his wife easily manipulate Macbeth as she attacks his manhood in order to provoke him to act on his desires.

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Throughout The Iliad, Homer highlights the gender inequalities between Helen and her male counterparts Agamemnon, Achilles, and Paris. Homer accentuates the objectification of women through conflicts between male characters. In Book 1, the audience is first introduced to this idea in a speech by the King of Mycenae, Agamemnon. The mighty king demands, “I don 't want to see the army destroyed like this. But I want another prize ready for me right away.

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They fight over the two girls. Later Achilles threatens to quit the war since he has nothing against the Trojans. He says that he only fights because Agemenom tells him too. King Agamemnon answered: Indeed, sir all that you say is fair and right. But this man wishes to be above all to rule everyone, to be King over everyone to order everyone-

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Lady Macbeth tried and attempted to fasten onto Macbeth’s inner feelings and attacked his level of masculinity. He is a easy person to manipulate once the future queen questioned his manliness. Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth that he cannot go through with killing King Duncan, she proceeds to tell him that he is a coward. To further convince her husband to kill Duncan is the utmost importance she said that she “would, while (her unborn child) was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed his brains out.” (Act 1, Scene 7, Lines

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She insults him and calls him a coward while also questioning his manhood which makes Macbeth come to a realization that not killing the king is the way of a coward and he is motivated to carry out the plan and murder the king because of Lady Macbeth’s insults and speech that she gives him. By successfully persuading Macbeth into murdering the king this shows that Lady Macbeth is controlling towards people and she can be a very manipulative person. It shows that she is the type of person that gets things done by manipulating other people to do her dirty work for her. Lady Macbeth can simply achieve her own goals by getting into anyone’s head and turning their own conscience against them in, which is essentially what she did to her husband. Macbeth would have never went through with killing King Duncan if Lady Macbeth had never persuaded him because he really does have a soft heart and is good and honorable.

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This shows that lady Macbeth emotionally abused Macbeth, which lead Macbeth to see his wife as very manipulating and threatening. Therefore, she is the true murderer. Even though Macbeth took action and murdered the king, her manipulation of him made it such that she might as well have been holding the knife

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Throughout literature, we see human characteristics in our characters. Characteristics such as punishment, downfall, middling character, free choice, and nobility. In this play called Macbeth we see all these characteristics fall into place throughout the good and bad choices acted on by our main character Macbeth. The play demonstrates how power will make or break character and lead to his/her own destruction by possessing a few of these characteristics. Macbeth demonstrates both literal and figurative nobility as the plot beings to grow throughout the play.

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Lady Macbeth plans to invite king Duncan over for dinner, but really she is convincing Macbeth to murder him. She influences him to kill Duncan because he is the only one standing in the way of Macbeth becoming king. Lady Macbeth plans the killing but convinces Macbeth to do the dirty deed. Lastly, Lady Macbeth is one of the causes of Macbeth’s failure because she repeatedly questions Macbeth’s manhood until she persuades him to make a bad choice. “When you durst do it then you were a man” (1.7.53-58).

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Macbeth states to Lady Macbeth, “we will proceed no further in this business” (I, VII) since he almost finally decides to refuse to kill Duncan. However, Lady Macbeth uses different manipulative methodologies towards Macbeth and persuades him to consult the killing of Duncan. “So green and pale” (I, VII), Lady Macbeth even called him a coward. From the same scene, she mentions, “From this time, such I account thy love”, implying that if Macbeth cant stay steady concerning the murder of the king, then she will consider his love for her to be as similarly conflicting. Later in scene, Lady Macbeth states that if she had made such a promise as Macbeth did to her, she would “dash the brains out” of her own child as “it was smiling in her fail”.

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Lady Macbeth’s strong character portrayed in Act I Scene V creates suspicion of dark events later in the play. In the play, Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth reveals her true character in her speech and foreshadows King Duncan’s death. Throughout her speech, Lady Macbeth reveals her lust for power and desire to kill Duncan to become queen. Although Lady Macbeth’s character is recently introduced into the play, she reveals her true self as a sadistic and covetous person which foreshadows the murder of King Duncan and Macbeth’s prophesied future.

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Hubris is one of the many themes that were brought up in the Iliad. Its definition is extreme pride and arrogance shown by a person that will bring downfall to that person or to others. The first time this theme is brought up is when Helen leaves with Paris. Agamemnon uses Helen as an excuse to rile up all the Greek kings. Agamemnon knew that if they beat Troy, then he would control a major passage of trade which would make him the undisputed ruler of all of Greece.

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He remained headstrong, stubborn and selfish in his actions, even warranting rebuke from the men on certain occasions. This is seen in the very first conflict that is witnessed on the pages of The Iliad. Agamemnon is faced with the request to give up his war prize, and immediately and indignantly decides against all the council of the army in order to keep his prize of a woman (28). With this decision, he sought his own desires selfishly and disconnected himself from the men he was meant to lead. Granted, he possessed a strong will, a thing very necessary for good leadership.

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Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, is a dark play full of witchcraft and foreshadowing. Lady Macbeth showed scheming qualities throughout the play which had a lot of influence on her husband, Macbeth. Because of her controlling personality, Macbeth was scared to disappoint her. She was the one who positioned the idea of Duncan’s murder into her husband’s mind where he was succumbed by her supremacies and made the ultimate mistake. It was also her idea to place the blame of Duncan’s death on the soldiers.

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