In this essay I am going to look at who is to blame for the murder of King Duncan. James I was superstitious and he was paranoid about the supernatural and he was afraid he would be killed. The reason why James I was scared was because he’s family got killed by witches.
Kings were representations of god. In the olden days people were scared of supernatural beings such as witches. Witches use rhyming couplets such as ‘again’ and ‘rain’ because they were chanting. The witches set the scene by picking out the thunder, lightening or rain.
The witches decide to set a terrible whether as to show they are evil and terrifying. They are also seen as controllers of fate. Macbeth believed that the witches were casting a spell on him. Lady Macbeth, a ruthless, evil character has a terrible ambition to become what she desires for example “have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash’d the brains out”.
This is referring to lady Macbeth would seriously harm her own child in order to achieve her goal. The role lady Macbeth plays within the play is the devils adverka, (the devil himself or his associate). Lady Macbeth also plays as the control freak, she orders Macbeth around as if she is the boss of him. Lady Macbeth also questions Macbeth’s manhood such as using similes like “Poor cat I the adage”This means that he wants a fish but doesn’t want to get his feet wet.
Lady Macbeth also encourages Macbeth to kill King Duncan; she does this by the use of rhetorical questions such as, “Was the hope drunk”,This represents Lady Macbeth using sarcasm because she accuses him of being the kind of person who wears wringley robes only when he is drunk. In the beginning of the play Macbeth was a ‘brave’ soldier. We know this because in the passage it explains, “He bade me, from him, call thee thane of cawdor”.This represents that Macbeth used to be an important respectful person.
Macbeth also helped Scotland win the war over Norway so he highly respected among the Scottish. Lady Macbeth drove Macbeth into a callous murderer because she wouldn’t stop antagonizing him and insulting him if she does not get her ‘desires’ for example, “And when goes hence”.Lady Macbeth is pressurising Macbeth to hurry up and kill king Duncan using this phrase. Macbeth used soliloquies in the passage this was when Macbeth talks to himself; he questions his own sanity when he explains, “Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going”.
Macbeth imagined a dagger above his head he thought it was to show him killing king Duncan but in actual fact it was Shakespeare showing Macbeths guilt. Macbeth commited the murder to King Duncan but in fact he was not solely to blame. Lady Macbeth played the biggest part in the king’s death by bullying Macbeth such as insulting his manhood. We know Lady Macbeth is an evil person and will do anything in order to become what she desires and so Macbeth was on the receiving end of Lady Macbeth. None of this would have happened if Macbeth wouldn’t have met the witches who stirred up trouble through out the passage.
