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Destiny, Fate, Free Will and Free Choice in Macbeth - Lady Macbeth as a Tool of Fate

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Lady Macbeth as a Tool of Fate

The play of Macbeth is all about power and greed. It is about ambition overriding inhibitions and the conscience of a good man. We know that most people consider Macbeth to be a good and a brave man at the start of the book, for example King Duncan himself refers to him as “O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!” He is admired for his skills in battle by everyone. It is hard to say what driving force underlies the events of the story, and it is equally hard to know what emotions or convictions drove the characters to do what they did. Parts of the text give us detail and insight as to the relation and power balance in the marriage of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, this can be interpreted and used to try to…show more content…
After only a few scenes it becomes apparent that it is Lady Macbeth who makes the decisions for them both. She is a very determined person; she also seems very unfeminine and sometimes even evil. She is also highly ambitious. However, although at first she appears completely heartless, saying she would have “dashed the brains out“ of a child of hers in order to become queen, she rarely actually commits an important crime. Her first sign of weakness is that she would not actually kill Duncan herself, saying that,
“Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done’t“
In the first few scenes she seems to be as evil as she proclaims she is, but as the play develops, so her conscience catches up with her and she becomes mentally ill. She shares the symptoms of sleeplessness and hallucinations with Macbeth that hark back to when he heard the voice call “Sleep no more!“ immediately after Duncan’s murder. This seems to be a curse, as does the vision of bloody hands. If indeed it is an actual curse then this would mean some greater force is involved in the story, but it could alternatively be nothing but their consciences and feelings of guilt and remorse.

Lady Macbeth had many reasons for wanting her husband to kill the king; mostly she was driven by ambition. She lusted after a royal title and power. “The golden
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