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To What Extent Is Lady Macbeth To Blame For Her Husband's Downfall

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Macbeth Final Essay To what extent Lady Macbeth is to blame for her husband’s downfall. Discuss the relationship between the couple as the play develops. Can a downfall of a person be blamed and/or caused solely on another? Arguably Lady Macbeth is partly to blame for the downfall of her husband. In the play Macbeth written by Shakespeare written in 1606. In the play, he tells the story of Macbeth and his life. He was married to Lady Macbeth, who was very superstitious. Macbeth was on a walk with Banquo and they just so happen to run into the witches. The three witches tell him an apparition and that they predict that he will be king. But to be king it is implied that Duncan would have to be dead. Duncan’s sons were exiled and at the time Macbeth had the most power because he was the Thane of Cawdor and the Thane of Glamis. To get rid of Duncan and become the king, Lady Macbeth had convinced her husband to do it for them and their relationship. She did this by calling him a coward and insulting his manliness. As well his own ambition had taken a part in the killing as well. He had strived to make his wife happy and be the most powerful man, king and warrior. By the end of the play Macbeth and his wife their relationship …show more content…

Lady Macbeth manipulated her husband early on in the play that if he did not kill Duncan the king that Macbeth is a coward, and that she would be the man and do it herself if only Duncan had not resembled her father. By her saying that she herself does not have the power to do it herself and needs her husband to kill Duncan for her. In the play Lady Macbeth has used her manipulating power to get her husband to do what she wants. She has caused him to believe he NEEDED to kill Duncan in order to satisfy her and to keep the title of “being a man” and keeping his “manlyness” . His downfall had been powered by her leading him in a path of his self destruction. His spiral was set

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The truth is, Lady Macbeth has not been assisting her husband but rather controlling him instead. Lady Macbeth would frequently bring Macbeth down and manipulate him into feeling like nothing without being King, this is shown when she says, “When you durst do it then you were a man; And to be more than you were, you would be so much more the man.” (Shakespeare, 1.7 49-52). Each time Macbeth questions the logistics of killing King Duncan, Lady Macbeth applies harmful manipulation tactics to push Macbeth towards regicide, suggesting that his worth as a man is tied to his willingness to seize

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Duncan represents the first step to the process because he is the first victim of the Macbeth's, the Macbeth's care more about becoming King and Queen than they do about sparing people and their lives. SImilar to history, once the throne holder reveals themselves as dead, by old age or murder, the throne must be handed down to secure the control over the citizens. Macbeth's cruelty rises through all the murder's he commits, not just

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Unfortunately, Lady Macbeth herself lacks the capability to kill Duncan. While she sincerely wishes she was able to complete the act, she asks the spirits if they could “unsex” her so that she would be capable of killing King Duncan (Shakespeare 32). As Lady Macbeth becomes aware of the witches’ prophecy, her ambition prompts her to develop a plan involving Macbeth murdering the king. However, she also suspects that her husband is “too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way” (Shakespeare 30), and therefore too civil to be able to seize the throne. Throughout her soliloquy that follows, Lady Macbeth finds that the only way to accomplish her goal is to manipulate her husband and convince him to go through with the murder.

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He chose to kill Duncan when speaking to his wife “I am settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time with fairest show. False face must hide what the false heart doth know.” (1.7.79-82) He has decided not only to kill his king, but to pretend that he is innocent, and take his throne, It is his decision, not Lady Macbeth’s.

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When Banquo asked them to predct his future, they told him that he will father a king. Both men seamed suspicios but soon after Macbeth was hailed as Thane of Cawdor, due to the death of the past Thane. After having told lady macbeth about the weird occurrence, she then manipulated Macbeth to murder King Duncan in his sleep when he comes to his castle, to become king. After the murder, Macbeth was named king but brought suspicion upon him by Banquo. Fufilling the predictions made by the witches, he feared that his reign as king will end as busquo was going to father a king.

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Macbeth is already having second thoughts about killing Duncan, but Lady Macbeth refuses to allow him to give up the opportunity to be king by attacking his manhood, she says: “When you durst do it, then you are a man” (1.7.49). Apart from the preternatural forces, Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth’s manliness, knowing that it is the greatest insult she can direct at him as he is a warrior above everything. She believes in the witches’ predictions as she says: “Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem to have thee crowned withal” (1.5.28-29). It is by means of attacking his manhood, something fundamental to his notion of himself as a warrior, that Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband, affecting his mental state and leading to Duncan’s murder.

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