Love Is The Reason For Macbeth's Downfall

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A great man once told me, “life is about choices.” If the person you loved came up to you today and asked you to murder someone, so you both could benefit from it, would you do it? In a tale of all tales, love seems to always blind and lead people to their own destruction. Love is not a feeling, it is a choice. You wake up everyday and choose whether or not to love a person that day, and on that day Macbeth chose to love Lady Macbeth enough that despite her wicked motivations and harsh words, he was going to follow through with killing King Duncan. Despite Stephen Greenblatt’s assertion that emphasized, that Lady Macbeth is the main influence in Macbeth’s downfall, Macbeth had a choice to kill or to not and he is the reason for his own downfall …show more content…

In response Macbeth sends his wife, Lady Macbeth, a letter planning to kill the King so he can fulfill the prophecy. This is the first view the reader has of Lady Macbeth’s mental illness, schizophrenia. Schizophrenia according to Mayo Clinic is, “severe brain disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally.” In Act I, scene 5, lines 36–52, she calls out onto the witches to “unsex” her and allow her to help her husband commit this murder against King Duncan. Lady Macbeth thinks that it is normal to call upon the abnormal spirits to give her strength to be able to kill King Duncan, and proves Lady Macbeth is mentally ill and can not be counted accountable for her actions. This scene is important because it marks the beginning of Lady Macbeth’s illness and how trying to support her husband leads to her mental …show more content…

It is shown by research according to National Alliance on Mental Illness that, about 90% of individuals who die by suicide experience mental illness. Macbeth is torn to piece when he finds out how his wife has died, and mentions how she should not have died this early and should have lived until tomorrow. This scene is very crucial to the defense of Lady Macbeth and whether or not she is evil, because it displays that even though Lady Macbeth pushed her husband to kill King Duncan, her intentions were for the benefit of Macbeth. It also shows how Macbeth did not think Lady Macbeth was evil and that how, “She should have died hereafter./There would have been a time for such a word./Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” Macbeth wished he would have had time to mourn his wife’s death and that shows how he did not see her as an evil

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