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To What Extent Is Lady Macbeth Responsible For Duncan's Death

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Is Lady Macbeth more responsible than Macbeth for the murder of King Duncan?

Who the burden of the blame for King Duncan’s death should fall upon is a highly contentious matter. Should Macbeth, the man who physically committed the murder be blamed? Or, should Lady Macbeth be blame? She was the one who pressured and urged Macbeth to commit the murder. Macbeth would not have committed the crime except at his wife’s urging. Lady Macbeth makes the killing into a test of manhood, so that Macbeth will only be a man in her eyes, she says, if he murders the king. Additionally, immediately after King Duncan’s murder, Lady Macbeth has no regrets, whereas Macbeth wishes he hadn’t done it as soon as the task has been accomplished.

Lady Macbeth should take blame for King Duncan’s death because, she played such a vital role in it that Macbeth would not have committed the crime except at his wife’s urging. Lady Macbeth speaks with such annunciated dictation of her intentions, that it becomes clear that …show more content…

Lady Macbeth puts this into action when she even does so much as to formulate the actual plan, which is used to murder King Duncan (Act 1, Scene 7, lines 59 – 72). Multiple other methods are also used by Lady Macbeth to convince her husband of this evil deed.

Lady Macbeth making the killing into a test of manhood, so that Macbeth will only be a man in her eyes, she says, if he murders the king, is one of the more prominent methods used by Lady Macbeth to pressure Macbeth. It was used to encourage him to complete the deed of murder against King Duncan to achieve his place as king. Lady Macbeth asserts:

“What beast was’t then, that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; and to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.” (1.7.47 –

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King Duncan arrived at dusk to the Macbeth castle to eat dinner with lady Macbeth to dance and have good time with together . Lady Macbeth is greeted to King Duncan and after they both arrive inside the castle, The king is a guest at the castle so he is shown around the castle, after they feast with music playing and kids singing and dancing. Later on lady Macbeth dances with the king and then gets a specific drink for the king and pours some kind of poison in the drink . The reason that she is doing this is because right before he arrived she told Macbeth that she was going to assassinate the king so that she would be queen, she told Macbeth to leave everything up to her and act as a servant . Later on as the night started to die down everyone

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There are two people that are at fault for the killing of King Duncan. Macbeth or Lady Macbeth I personally think that the fault is definitely on lady Macbeth because all the stuff she did plays a bigger role than what Macbeth did. Like completely plan planning his murder, and convincing Macbeth to kill Duncan even when he didn't want to do it. As soon as lady Macbeth heard that the 3 witches told Macbeth that he was going to be king she wanted it. She wanted that power more than anything, even more than Macbeth.

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The couple both played their parts in this situation. So was Lady Macbeth more responsible for killing Duncan, or was Macbeth more responsible? In this scenario, Lady Macbeth was more responsible. Many would assume Macbeth was more responsible because he was the one who killed Duncan. Lady Macbeth, however, was the first to suggest that killing Duncan was the only way Macbeth could ascend to the throne.

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791 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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781 Words | 4 Pages

Women are manipulative to men, women try to get what they want, They are evil. In act one scene 7, macbeth is told to kill duncan by lady macbeth but macbeth says he will not and cannot do it. Lady macbeth calls macbeth a “ coward ”, and also says “ I dare do all that to become a man.” lady macbeth seemed to love her husband at the beginning of the story, but then she started to change.

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Lady Macbeth is the Real Murder People can be persuasive to do thing based on others influences. These people are typically close to them and may even be related. In the play Macbeth no is closer to each other like Lady Macbeth and Macbeth. And even though people are responsible for our actions, they may not always be responsible for what made them do those actions. Although in the play Macbeth many people think that Macbeth is the one who is responsible for all the murders it is truly Lady Macbeth because of the influence that she puts on Macbeth and the verbal torment she gave him before murdering King Duncan.

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Macbeth is More Responsible In Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth” Macbeth is seen to be as the one responsible for King Duncan’s murder, as Macbeth’s hands were the ones that actually killed King Duncan. However, while Macbeth may be thought of as ultimately responsible for his actions, but there are other influences that actually show on a closer inspection of the text, the three main influences to his decision are Lady Macbeth, himself, and the witches. This is (in my opinion) convincing evidence that Macbeth is completely responsible for the murder of King Duncan.

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769 Words | 4 Pages

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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So I am asking your majesty, why would Macbeth take all the blame for it? Lady Macbeth Says ‘My hands are of your color, but I shame to wear a heart to white’. This shows the major contribution that Lady Macbeth had towards the murder of Duncan. Often Lady Macbeth insulted Macbeth with statements that question his manhood. Lady Macbeth says ‘When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man.

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In Macbeth, the central protagonist, Macbeth, undergoes a drastic transformation from accomplished warrior to power hungry dictator with countless instances of bloodshed left in his wake ; Macbeth’s greed as well as the urges brought on by those around him lead Macbeth down a treacherous and destructive path to power. Macbeth’s journey to power begins with a urge to murder Duncan in order to become the kind of Scotland, Macbeth states, “Let not light see my black and deep desires.” (1.IV.58) Although Macbeth commits this murder himself and seeks it for personal gain, this murder would not have been committed without his wife exerting pressure on him to commit the crime.

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967 Words | 4 Pages

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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805 Words | 4 Pages

In the play of Macbeth, there are some characters that could be responsible for Duncan’s death. I personally think Lady Macbeth is the cause of Duncan's murder. She is the most ambitious to kill the king in the beginning of the play, pressuring Macbeth. Lady Macbeth was persuasive of driving Macbeth to commit the murder. She manipulates him to go through with the murder even though he was very doubtful about it.

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70 Words | 1 Pages

This speech also helps us understand one of the major plot points in Macbeth by giving the view of one of the most influential characters prior to King Duncan’s death. The view of Lady Macbeth and how she is going to achieve her goal gives us an indication of the level of ambition in Macbeth and how far characters are willing to go to achieve a higher ‘status’ or title’.

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756 Words | 4 Pages

Whereas the actual murderer commonly retains the characteristics needed to commit murder in cold blood, in Macbeth, that idea is twisted. Macbeth physically murders King Duncan, but maintains misgivings over doing so, while Lady Macbeth orchestrates the murder plot, yet maintains only determination to continue. She sheds the mantle of the stereotypically submissive and innocent wife whose role is restricted to mainly observing her husband’s exploits, and takes on the role of a controlling and ruthless mastermind in arranging an elaborate plot to dethrone Duncan and install Macbeth as king. Ultimately, she is to blame for the murder because, while Macbeth does physically murder the king, it is she who orchestrates the murder and influences Macbeth to follow through with it.

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748 Words | 3 Pages

In my opinion the “three weird sisters” play a significant role and have complete control over the whole play. The premise of the play Macbeth is his lust for power and all the events that occur in the process to become and maintain being king. Without the weird sisters prophesies to Macbeth does he even embark on his murderous rampage? We learn quickly that Macbeth is a brave and noble warrior, so it doesn’t seem likely that after King Duncan named him Thane of Cawdor he would plot the murder of him after. Though shortly before his promotion the weird sisters do prophecies to him that he will become Thane and later King.

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