Hamlet - Claudius Vs. Lady Macbeth

"Yet I do fear thy nature, it is too full o’th milk of human kindness. To catch the nearest way thou wouldst be great. Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it." (Act 1, scene 5). Lady Macbeth is the force behind Macbeth’s sudden ambition and she tries to manipulate him into feeling guilty and unmanly for not following through with the murder, by using her husbands emotions, she manages to convince Macbeth to murder Duncan.

“Was the hope drunk? …are u afraid? …live a coward in thine own esteem.” She scolded Macbeth a coward and that indeed, made Macbeth killed King Duncan. Wu Ze Tian was also a person who craved for power. She had even strangled her own child to death in order to be the queen.

Unfortunately, it corrupts if it is not restrained. In Macbeth, Shakespeare effectively uses the characters of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth to underscore their struggles for power. Their hunger for power is the determining factor for their destructions. Lady Macbeth longs for power, and hopes to get it by manipulating her husband to kill his own cousin. While Macbeth kills Duncan and becomes king, she fails to realize her husband’s obsession with power exceeds her.

She congregates everything that is evil inside her body in order to perform the evil deed of murdering Duncan. If Lady Macbeth is absent from the story, the murder of Duncan would not take place. This is so because during many parts of the story, Macbeth possesses uncertainty of whether it is righteous to take the life of such a great king in order to feed his hunger for power. Despite Macbeth doubting whether or not he should accept the murder of Duncan, he is always convinced by his wife that murdering Duncan is appropriate. Lady Macbeth even sees her husband’s weaknesses and uses his weaknesses to harass him into killing Duncan.

Then there was the witches, whose ability to fool with the minds of men almost killed the king themselves. Macbeth was gullible and those witches took advantage of that weakness quite well. They told him exactly what was needed to drive him right into action. The combination of the witches, Lady Macbeth and his blinding ambition was obviously enough to make him kill not only his majesty but also his friend. Those are all good points and like I said I understand why some people could feel bad for him and call the play a tragedy.

Banquo realizes that there must be a trick hidden in the witches prophecies somewhere but Macbeth refuses to accept that, and when Lady Macbeth finds out about the witches her strong desire for ambition and her cold nature leads Macbeth astray. Lady Macbeth's ambition far exceeds Macbeths and so she is able to get Macbeth to agree with her to kill King Duncan. Macbeth still has a conscience at this stage because he is very hesitant about killing the King but his weak nature over comes him. He has a conscience throughout the entire play as this is seen by the hallucinations of the dagger and the ghost of Banquo. His vivid imag... ... middle of paper ... ...as already thrown away his conscience, so much so, that Macbeth continues to commit even more evil acts.

After the successful murder of Duncan, Macbeth entered a life of evil. Ambition was also clearly stated when he thought of killing his friend Banquo to protect the kingship. The witches’ predictions sent Macbeth into his own world where he could not be deterred from becoming king. Macbeth displays his cowardice by avoiding Lady Macbeth’s initial plan to murder King Duncan. By overcoming his personal matters to plot the death of the king, Macbeth only displays that women are manipulative, and often have their way with men.

An analysis of Lady Macbeth reveals that she is a powerful character who adds complexity and depth to the play about murder, insanity and revenge. Due to Lady Macbeth’s ambition to become queen, she persuades her husband to murder king Duncan. She calls Macbeth a coward, believing that he is not worthy enough to match his actions with his wishes telling him “Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire?”(I.vii.39-40). Lady Macbeth is trying to reveal the evil within her husband; she wants to provoke him into committing a murder so that Macbeth will be devoted to gaining control of Scotland. She is aware that she has control over her husband which she is using against him.

After Macbeth sends her a letter about the witches’ premonitions, Lady Macbeth is no longer the sweet innocent lady we expect her to be. She turns into a person who is just as ambitious as her husband and she wants to do whatever it takes to help him get Duncan out of the way. She even goes to the point of calling Macbeth a coward, and mocking his bravery when he fails to complete the job. She is even willing to do it herself (plant the bloody knife with the guard). Lady Macbeth is constantly putting the pressure on Macbeth to do things that he is not sure about.

After he kills the King and Banquo (separately) he is distraught with shame and guilt, while Lady Macbeth holds herself together and covers for his strange behavior. In Act V, we see Lady Macbeth falling apart, a downfall we later learn leads her to suicide. Macbeth, on the other hand, has forgotten his guilt, and is even willing to fight in the face of certain death when he learns of Macduff's unmotherly birth. While both characters may be viewed as foul, the theme still applies. One would expect, stereotypically, that Macbeth would be the one trying to convince his queasy wife that killing the King would be a blessing.