Who do you blame most for King Duncan's Death?

Who do you blame most for King Duncan's Death?

Who do you blame for king Duncan’s death? Consider the role of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and the Witches.

When answering this question you need to consider the roles of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and the Witches. From this we need to also consider when the play was written and in what context the audience saw the characters in the time when the plays were written.

Shakespeare was commissioned to write the play by James I of England who was also James IV of Scotland in the same period and was the new King of England. James I was obsessed and paranoid about witches, so much so that he wrote a book on the subject titled Demonology; at this time everyone believed in the existence of the supernatural, and when the Witches came on to the stage they would not be seen as funny or laughable but as sinister and scary. James I mother, Mary Queen of Scots had been executed on the charge of treason, his father Lord Darnley had been assassinated. James I had inherited a time of political turmoil and confusion through the church and the monarchy’s ideology; and a time where political murder and revenge murder were commonplace. James I himself had, had two assassination attempts made on his life. The second of these was in 1605 and is well known to this day it was the Gunpowder Plot; this may be why the murder of King Duncan isn’t in the play because it may insight ideas about murdering King James I, also showing the murder may make James I seem less divine. James I would be seen as less divine because if a King is seen to be murdered on stage while he is asleep with no struggle them he may be seen by the public as faulted and fallible.

In Shakespeare’s period people believed there was a greater power controlling life, and as long as this divine order was maintained chaos wouldn’t take control. The murder of the king would throw the system into chaos; the murder would not only be a crime against the state but more importantly a crime against god. At the top of the chain is god with ultimate power over everything, then King, Thanes, citizens, and finally animals.

Macbeth is thane of Glamis at the start and is then also Thane or Cawdor, this gives him a duty to the King and god that he must obey as they are his superiors.