Lady Macbeth Is The Real Driving Force

Behind The Murder Of King Duncan. Essay, Research Paper

In this essay I am to discuss the statement .Lady Macbeth is the real driving force behind the murder of King Duncan. and decide

whether I believe this viewpoint is correct or whether I believe that there

were other influences on the dagger hand of the Thane of Cawdor. To come to a

decision and accomplish my task, I will be looking at the events leading up to

the murder and the characters involved in the decision to murder Duncan. Also,

I will need to look at the historical and cultural aspects of the play like why

witches were included in the play and also the ways that the play was written

around the true story of King Macbeth of Scotland.We first encounter the character of Lady Macbeth in

Act 1 Scene 5 while she is reading the letter sent to her by Macbeth describing

his first encounter with the three witches. From then on she shows herself to

be ambitious and strong mentally yet weak in her actions (she found herself

unable to kill Duncan herself, and gave the excuse that he looked too much like

her father as he slept). As soon as she reads the letter, she decides that

Macbeth will be the next Scottish King and fulfil the witches prophecy no

matter the method. This proves that Lady Macbeth was a driving force behind Duncan.s murder, but the question remains -

was she the true driving force behind

the event. To answer this question, I need to look at all the influences involved, and to do this I first need to

ask,. .What is it that started both

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth thinking of kingships and murder.. The answer is the

wyrd sisters of the blasted heath . the three witches.The witches were used in the play for two main

reasons. First and foremost, they were used as a catalyst to start the chain of

events resulting in Duncan.s murder, the suicide of Lady Macbeth, and the fall

of Dunsinane to the revolutionary forces of MacDuff. Secondly, they were used

as a personification of evil for the audiences. This was a symbolic character

they could relate with, since the play was written especially for King James I

of England, who was also King James VI of Scotland and a staunch believer in

and hater of witchcraft. As the king believed that witches were evil and in

league with the devil, so too did the common people of England. Therefore, they

would quite readily believe that a witch could cast spells, see into the

future, tie wind into three knots, and become your mortal enemy if you refused

to give them food, among other things. The general view of the people was that

witches were the emissaries of the devil, and since at that time, religion

played a major part in the lives of people, these witches were seen as pure

evil. Witches were the most evil things on earth, and these three witches were

no exception to that rule. The witches, through three sentences helped the

imaginations of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to start forming ideas of murder.

These statements took the forms of prophecy . . .All hail Macbeth! hail to

thee, Thane of Glamis!. .All hail Macbeth! hail to thee Thane of Cawdor!. .All

hail Macbeth! thou shalt be king hereafter.... Without these predictions, the

seeds of grim imagination they planted in the minds of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

would never have taken seed to result in the death of Duncan. There is a chance

that if it wasn.t for these three witches, the Macbeth.s would never have even

contemplated murder. None of the events involving the witches would have

happened though if they had been unable to convince Macbeth of the authenticity

of their statements. To do this they did things like addressing him by name,

although he had never met them before; also, they made him believe the

predictions through the first two statements. The witches. first statement,

..hail to thee, Thane of Glamis. convinced Macbeth that these .weÏrd sisters. knew

him, and maybe had supernatural powers. The second statement, ..hail to thee,

Thane of Cawdor. convinced Macbeth that the witches could see into the future,

since he himself only found out he was Thane of Cawdor after the witches had

disappeared. These convinced Macbeth that .they [the witches] have more in them

than mortal knowledge.. The final convincing event came at the witches. exit,

when they .made themselves air.The witches may have planted the seeds in Macbeth.s

brain, but it was his own ambition that helped these seeds to grow into

thoughts of murder. Macbeth was the first character to think of murder. This is

indicated in his first soliloquy by phrases such as .why do I yield to that

suggestion, whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart

knock at my ribs, against the use of nature.. and refer to these murderous

thoughts as .horrible imaginings.. His use of the word .yield. indicates that

Macbeth does not want to be thinking these treacherous thoughts. Desp

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