Macbeth As Influenced By Lady Macbeth Essays - Characters In Macbeth

Macbeth As Influenced By Lady Macbeth In Shakespeares tragedy, Macbeth, is seen as a courageous soldier who is loyal to the King but is corrupted by the witches prophecies and by Lady Macbeths and his own ambition. This is because of the weakness of Macbeths character and the strong power of Lady Macbeth as she is easily able to influence him. Her strength motivates him at the start but after he realizes what he has done it is himself that continues in his murderous, bloody path. At the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth appears as a kind wife but underneath lies a scheming and treacherous woman. Both Macbeth and his wife go through many changes throughout the course of this play. They go from being honored, noble people to being reduced to nothing. They both have tragic flaws such as ambition and greed which bring them to their down fall. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a strong soldier who fights for the King without mercy but his strive for ambition and his curious nature leads him to the witches who greet him with a prophecy. 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 Macbeths 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 imagination and his constant worry also provokes him. This is also evident in his terrible dreams which gives the solid theme that he has indeed murdered sleep. Throughout the play we see the character of Macbeth change not from just the way he thinks and what we hear from the play, but from the actions he takes in the play. Killing Banquo, then having Lady Macduff and her children murdered, shows the insecurity that was present in Macbeth. After the murder of Duncan, Macbeth becomes paranoid and his first step of killing the guards is one of many that he takes to secure himself. Macbeth is also very superstitious and this is shown when he believes the prophecy the witches told him about Banquos offspring becoming Kings. Towards the end of the play when Macbeths wife has died and the battle is drawing closer Macbeth shows some potential good. He wishes for a normal life in which he would have lived to an honorable age but he recognizes that he has ruined any chance of that. Even when Macbeth hears that the prophecy has come true of Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane, he rejects this idea and fights on until he realizes that Macduff wasnt born in a natural birth but instead was Untimely ripped from his mothers womb. When Macbeth hears of this he realizes what he has done and how he has been tricked by the witches. Although he has come to that realization, he continues to fight only to be slain in the end. Macbeth can be summarized as a character who is physically strong but he is mentally very weak and it is this weakness which causes his downfall and change. Other factors do however also contribute to this change such as his wife whose ambition is very strong at first and is much stronger mentally than Macbeth. It is also Macbeths ambition and his trust in the witches which ultimately change him. Lady Macbeth seems to be almost opposite compared to that of Macbeth in physical and mental power. Lady Macbeth is the person who is able to persuade Macbeth into killing Duncan, assuring Macbeth that it will succeed, as Lady Macbeths ambition is far greater than that of Macbeth. This change in the character of Lady Macbeth is apparent after she reads the letter from Macbeth. She talks to the evil spirits to make her cold hearted with lines