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Essay Responsible For Lady Macbeth's Downfall

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In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, there is no doubt that lady Macbeth takes some blame for her husband’s actions throughout the play. Lady Macbeth is also partially responsible for the destruction of her husband’s morals. Lady Macbeth is not a monster without compassion, but is sly and cunning when she is able to convince her husband to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth’s ability to influence her husband, leads the audience to believe that she is the main cause of Macbeth’s downfall. The audience is also lead to believe that lady Macbeth is responsible because she planed the murder of Duncan with no help. “Lady Macbeth's principal importance lies in her ability to influence her husband early in the play when she urges him to murder the king.” (Boyce, Charles.) Although Macbeth really thought hard about killing Duncan he wouldn’t have been able to do unless Lady Macbeth persuaded him to. Even though on the surface it …show more content…

When we are first introduced to Lady Macbeth she immediately starts to plan the murder of Duncan.” Lady Macbeth's career in the play is one long mental civil war; and the strain ends, as such a strain could only end, in madness.” (Moulton). She does this after discovering the news that her husband is now next in line for the crown of Scotland. Her husband acquires thane of Cawdor at the very beginning of the play and that’s where the down fall of Macbeth begins. “In the mind of Lady Macbeth, ambition is represented as the ruling motive, an intense, over-mastering passion, which is gratified at the expense of every just and generous principle, and every feminine feeling. In the pursuit of her object, she is cruel, treacherous, and daring. She is doubly, trebly, dyed in guilt and blood; for the murder, she instigates is rendered more frightful by disloyalty and ingratitude, and by the violation of all the most sacred claims of kindred and hospitality.”(

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