Macbeth Conscience

She is the strong influence that brainwashed Macbeth to murder his lord, his master, King Duncan, with his own bare hands. The audience is led to think that Lady Macbeth is the main culprit as she thinks up all her grand plans and devious schemes. She is, moreover, a sly person, the person behind the scenes and her husband is easily manipulated and is pushed around by her. Just prior to all of this happening, Lady Macbeth was a very loving wife, and she wanted all the best for her husband. However, after Macbeth send the letter containing the witches prophecies, she turns into a monster who is just as ambitious as her husband and wants to do whatever it takes to “help” him get Duncan out of his way. Although, she take it too far, she adds pressure on Macbeth to commit a crime he is unsure of doing. She even goes to the point of calling him a coward, mocking his bravery and masculinity. Lady Macbeth even says in one of her soliloquies that she wants to be released of all her femininity, morals and values so that she can agree and help Macbeth with the deed. It is certain the Lady Macbeth’s ambition is controlling her actions and

Through the soliloquy, the audience gains insight into Macbeth’s innermost thoughts. He names multiple reasons as to why he should not kill King Duncan, noting that Duncan is his guest, kinsman and a good king. He also admits that the only motive he has is the “Vaulting ambition” residing inside of him. Here he names his own hamartia, his fatal flaw, and acknowledges that to give in and commit such a deed, would result in his “deep damnation”. While still undecided on the matter, Lady Macbeth enters, and, seeing his indecision she decides to manipulate him into the decision that suits her; for after all, she is almost if not as ambitious as her husband. By questioning his manhood, his bravery, even their marriage, she successfully leads him to make the choice to kill the king. We now must realise that although the witches’ prophecies and Lady Macbeth’s taunts were a catalyst for Macbeth’s treachery, they never force him to make these errors in judgement; it must have been something that was already inside of him that caused him to decide this. There must have been some inherent evil already a part of his character.

With attention to the murder of King Duncan, Macbeth struggles with the morality of his actions. Before the murder takes place, Macbeth begins to believe that the murder will “be the be-all and the end-all” to his clear conscious and would risk him to eternal damnation (Act I, line 5). Yet, the murder would bring him power over Scotland and he “shalt be kind” as told by the Weird Sisters(Act 1, line 50). Macbeth goes off of his ambition to murder King Duncan. The internal struggle of choosing mortality over motives brought forth an intense shift of loyalty to betrayal. The murder caused for Macbeth to turn on Scotland and only care for his own selfish motives. The betrayal causes for the play to become horrific and have a double meaning. Macbeth must put on a face to hide his murder to become the king. The double meaning is how Macbeth looks like a hero to all of Scotland, but only the people on the inside know of his horrific actions. He had to murder to to get the position of King, but the

Lady Macbeth is the one who instigates most of the mischief in the play. Near the start of the play, we know that Lady Macbeth wants to be queen, and it is evident that her ambition for her husband to become queen is the reason she persuaded her husband to commit all of the terrible crimes. It is obvious that Lady Macbeth is going to manipulate Macbeth when she says, “That I may pour my spirits in thine ear”. (1.5.26) Lady Macbeth baits Macbeth to kill the king. She questions his manhood, and calls him a coward. Lady Macbeth tries to make Macbeth feel guilty by saying,

After hearing the prophecy that he will become king, Macbeth resolves to leave his future up to fate proving his pride and prestige are very important to him. Once he is told of Malcolm being named successor to the throne, Macbeth decides that if he is going to reach his goal he cannot leave it up to luck. Again Macbeth’s resolve to murder Duncan wavers when he leaves the grand banquet to assess his situation and decide whether he wants to proceed. His arguments include wishing to keep his honor and not kill Duncan for Duncan is there ‘in double trust’. Thus, Macbeth is shown to be clinging to his honor. Finally, Macbeth must stand his ground one last time against his wife who uses tact to emasculate Macbeth. In his final attempt to stop the whole ordeal before it can start Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth that he does not want to ‘cast aside’ the honor he has just recently received. Unfortunately, Lady Macbeth will have none of what her husband is saying and so convinces Macbeth to follow through with his plan of murdering King Duncan. Hence, the audience is given the first example of how powerful selfish motives are and how quickly they can spread to others along with cause them to perform unthinkable

In Act two scene one Macbeth has an encounter with a ghost in the form of a dagger and he begins to hallucinate about killing King Duncan. Once the hallucination is over Macbeth accepts his and King Duncan’s fate. Shakespeare uses diction and imagery to convey Macbeth’s remorseful and fearful state of mind in Macbeth’s Soliloquy Act two scene one. Shakespeare uses harsh words such as “dagger” and “oppressed” to express Macbeth’s remorseful state of mind.

Shakespeare is one of the most influential and famous playwrights of modern times. A major reason his work is loved by so many is because of his insightfulness into the human mind, and one of Shakespeare’s greatest works demonstrating this is Macbeth. This famous play is about nobleman and military man Macbeth and how his tragic choices lead to his inevitable demise. The first and most trying choice that Macbeth has to make is whether or not to kill Duncan, the king of Scotland. Macbeth has to make this decision while being pulled in different directions by two conflicting forces. The force pulling him away from murder is his loyalty and humanity towards Duncan. The other force pulling him towards murder is his loyalty towards Lady Macbeth

Macbeth’s ambitious ways takes over his whole inner self throughout his time of first wanting to be king. Macbeth was thought to be a great leader and war hero before he was king. Macbeth was hatched an idea by three suspicious witches in whom he had never come in contact with before. They told him that he would one day become King of Scotland. After the witches disappeared, he got to think a lot about what they told him and pondered the words they spoke. Macbeth sends a letter to his wife about his feelings of what he had heard. When Macbeth returned back to his castle his wife wanted to lead him down a dark path and feed his ambition. Macbeth decides he wants to go after the crown after consulting his wife. "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, and falls on th'other...." (Act I, scene vii) This shows that Macbeth’s only reason to kill Duncan is for his ambition. Macbeth ends up killing Duncan. The way Macbeth killed Duncan made it a great crime scene. Macbeth still

William Shakespeare’s seventeenth century tragedy, Macbeth, tells the story of Macbeth, whose ambition leads him to murder his close friends. In the play, he is told that he will become king, but to speed up the process he is convinced to kill the current king, Duncan. Although he is portrayed as a vile, evil character, the scene before he murders Duncan, his thoughts after the murder, and his encounters with his friend’s ghost show that Macbeth truly is a man of conscience.

Macbeth corrupts the power of rule and becomes self centered and greedy. The corruption of power creates self centeredness and revenge. Early in the play, Macbeth emerges as the definition of what it means to be a man, Macbeth takes his time so everything will be one right and no one will question him when he takes throne. Fortunately, Macbeth’s decision to rethink the plan of Duncan's murder enables him to change his plan so he can kill Duncan and will have it be “done quickly”.

The king, who was so heart wrenchingly innocent, serves as a tool that facilitates Macbeth’s mental deterioration. The play in its entirety contains many heinous acts perpetrated by Macbeth, but the killing of Duncan is the first moment in the drama where Macbeth loses his humanity. After this moment, Macbeth reverts to nothing more than a mindless puppet who is bent by the whims of his wife. The article “Macbeth Themes” explains, “…he starts to reconsider killing the king… Lady Macbeth challenges, asking if will "live a coward?”… Lady Macbeth wins the argument, and so she uses the same tactic when Macbeth loses control during the banquet”

The play “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare explores the complexity of the character Macbeth and how he decides to commit regicide in order to take kingship of Scotland. Macbeth deciding to kill shows the complexity of all of his morals and how some of the characteristic's has become desensitised. Macbeth is a very complex character within the play and explored by Shakespeare through many techniques.

Throughout the play, Macbeth’s character is greatly influenced by others, which affect him in the long run. In the article Ambition by Stephen Fonash, it states: "struggling to press through the narrow way of ambition," usually in a desire for honor, popularity, and power. It is perhaps because of these very human qualities—to desire love, honor, knowledge, and power—that the theme of ambition has been so prevalent in literature” (Fonash 2010). This quote relates to Macbeth's character because he craves power and will go above and beyond to succeed. At the beginning of the play, King Duncan views Macbeth as a loyal and trustworthy individual. However, Macbeth allows his ambition to get the best of him and betrays Duncan by murdering him to steal the throne. This is a representation of the theme “Illusion vs. Reality”, as it demonstrates Macbeth’s unexpected foul behaviour. In the third act, Macbeth worries that Banquo is going to suspect Duncan’s murder since he was present when Macbeth found out he is going to become King. Also, Macbeth

The indecision and internal conflict in this play causes Macbeth and Lady Macbeth commit irrational actions and enter an intense state of paranoia. This emotional and physical state that the two characters struggle with is what eventually leads to their downfall. Macbeth’s main struggle is his indecision on weather or not he should kill the king. Macbeth’s main reason for wanting to kill Duncan was because he wanted to become king himself. In Laila Abdalla’s article about the roles of power in Macbeth she says, “Macbeth, I contend, illustrates that the kings competing notions of power are a formula for calamity.” Macbeth has several things to consider when thinking about killing Duncan such as thoughts of it coming back to haunt him, Macbeth is his host, and since he is noble many people would miss him. These three thoughts replay over and over in Macbeth’s head causing him to become a little crazy and have irrational thoughts.

The theme of good and evil can be evaluated through the characterisation of Macbeth’s psyche. His struggle between virtue and immorality is a central conflict in the play. In the beginning, Macbeth is a valued Thane who is incredibly loyal to King Duncan. He is regarded by his peers as “brave, … valiant and worthy”, highlighting the good nature of his character. Soon after, Macbeth is corrupted by the witches’ prophecies and his wife’s ruthlessness and succumbs to evil by murdering King Duncan. Having performed the act, Macbeth is filled with remorse, which is evident as he states that he would “wake Duncan with thy knocking” if he could. However, once Macbeth realises that he has attained the object of his ambition, he begins to lose his moral reservations and make more inhuman choices. He is thrust into a state of guilt and terror, provoking him to murder repeatedly to placate his paranoia. By the end of the play, Macbeth has evolved into “a bloody tyrant”. An Elizabethan audience would have an unforgiving