Essay on Compare and Contrast: Macbeth & Lady Macbeth

     In Shakespeare’s classic tragedy of Macbeth the main character Macbeth is driven from his status as a well respected warrior and lord of not one, but two Scottish regions to a dishonest, unloyal murderer. Macbeth gets caught in a web of lies and vile acts of murder in which he brings about his own demise. His criminal actions lead up to his tragic ending of life. ‘ They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But bearlike I must fight the course.’ His great ambition and gullibility of the witches predictions are two of the biggest factors of his downfall;however, Lady Macbeth was probably the biggest influence in the whole tragedy.

Lady Macbeth 's impetus for Macbeth to kill Duncan shows she is able to control Macbeth. She sees Macbeth as a weak man

Lady Macbeth appears evil, but this is proof of her devotion and drive to assist Macbeth rise to the throne. Macbeth is doubtful about their plan to kill King Duncan; however, Lady Macbeth bombards him with comments that question his courage. She goes as far as telling him his love his worth nothing if he refuses, which proves her to be dominant and controlling using his own weakness against him. His love for her. The fact that she belittles his confidence, insults his abilities, and questions his manhood & ambitions showing how manipulative she can be, but also wise because it worked in her favour. She said to him “Screw your courage to the sticking place” (1.7.60). Because Lady Macbeth manages to drive Macbeth to Duncan’s death, this shows viewers that Lady Macbeths own ambition is the real driving force behind most of Macbeth’s actions, because of his strong dedicated love for her.

his wife. In my opinion he does this so that Lady Macbeth is ready to

"Macbeth" is a tragic play that was written by William Shakespeare in the early 1600’s. It revolved around the character Macbeth and his urge to become king of Scotland. Macbeth had to do anything possible to become the king including murder, lying, and deception. However, Macbeth committed these evil deeds due to some influential people in his life. Between Macbeth’s wife persuading him to do anything to become king and the witches prophesying over him causes Macbeth to try and bury the past and control the future.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as they both in turn take on the role of the

At the start of the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are seen as a united

     Lady Macbeth progresses throughout the play from a seemingly savage and heartless creature to a very delicate and fragile woman. In the beginning of the play, she is very ambitious and hungry for power. She pushes Macbeth to kill Duncan in order to fulfill the witches’ prophecy. In Act I, Scene 6, she asks the gods to make her emotionally strong like a man in order to help her husband go through with the murder plot. She says, “Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty!” Also, she does everything in her power to convince Macbeth that he would be wrong not to kill Duncan. In Act I,

It seems that she can convince him to do anything as long as she pushes the right buttons. On the other hand, as the play goes one, and Duncan is killed, their is a reversal of natural order, and Macbeth becomes the dominating one. Lady Macbeth becomes very obedient. She becomes pathetic and only a shadow of her former self. Where she used to be manipulative and stong willed she is now weak and is unable to control Macbeth.

However once they accomplish the deed, the torment that the guilt brings is too much for Macbeth but he gets used to the evil of killing people meanwhile the opposite happens to Lady Macbeth who becomes paranoid about killing Duncan. Shakespeare presents the play in such a way that the audience sees how more and more their relationship changes dramatically as a result of how they each handle their emotions following the murder of King Duncan. Although Macbeth was weak at first, it was the strong Lady Macbeth who helped him through the first murder, but in sacrifice to controlling Macbeth and his conscience, she lost control of her own and consequently became insane and committed suicide. Lady Macbeth repeatedly convinced her husband by questioning his manhood “When you durst do it, then you were a man, / And, to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man” (Shakespeare 1.7.54-56). She is a strong, powerful character in comparison to her easily influenced husband, until towards the end of the play where he seems to take on her role.

Lady Macbeth is more power hungry and ambitious then Macbeth is. She, through ambition she gives the finial push to Macbeth to kill Duncan the king of Scotland. Her power however, is not driven by the sisters, hers is greed. She wants to be Queen, she wants the power of being Queen. Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeths ambition is tragic flaw. Her ambition drives her to her to go crazy which ultimately drives her to her death. There is an instance where she is sleep walking, eyes open. She goes to her vanity and sits down, she looks at her hands a sees blood. Then she sticks her hand in the water bowl and attempts to wash them. When she pulls them back out the blood did not wash away. Only she can see the blood her maid and doctor see this happening and they just think that she is going crazy. This is only the beginning of her insaneness. Just before her death she vilely reads a letter that Macbeth sent to her, telling her that he was to be King some how. It is her guilt that kills her.

Shakespeare's Macbeth is considered one of his darkest and most emotionally intense plays, presenting a thematic progression if its protagonists' evil throughout the plot. While the written narrative itself can communicate the meaning of the play, Macbeth is ultimately intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. A visual depiction allows for a more effective display of intricate details such as the character's tone of voice, positioning, etc. -- all of which are essential to the holistic, tragic atmosphere that Shakespeare's writing implies. Therefore, the adaptation of his plays by filmmakers and directors have the opportunity to showcase artistically different interpretations of the same work of literature. Even critical

After killing King Duncan , Macbeth is starting to realize what it is that he has done, and becomes suspicious and paranoid of everyone around him by puting spy's in every castle and killing those who are any treat to him what so ever. Banquo is the only other person who knows of the meeting with the witches and he would assume that it was Macbeth who killed the King. The witches also said that Banquo would beget kings but he himself would never be king after Macbeth, and so Macbeth decides that Banquo is a threat to him. To get rid of the treat with banquo he decides to kill him and his son Fleance.

They use a variety of different methods to not only gain their status but also to maintain it including murder or assassination. The changes that they went through are contradictory as one went from refusing to murder to freely and frequently killing people meanwhile the other went from ruthless to remorseful. Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth and Macbeth in the play Macbeth to show the change that can happen to people by first introducing Macbeth as a man full of the milk of human kindness to a man known as a murderous and vicious man of deceit, by setting up Lady Macbeth as an instrument of evil by first showing her as asking to be more evil yet later she is shown to be distraught over her actions and is trying desperately get it off her hands, by showing the difference between the characters when one compares them from the beginning or the play to the

A Comparison of Macbeth and Hamlet MACBETH stands in contrast throughout with Hamlet; in the manner of