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Macbeth Essay

Decent Essays
2012
MacBeth 5 Paragraph Essay
A Tragic Tale of Ambition
A Play By: William Shakespeare
ENG-3UR

As Shakespeare 's tale of tragic ambition Macbeth progresses, Lady Macbeth undergoes a metamorphosis moving from a stable, loving wife, into a power hungry woman driven to madness by her own obsession for complete control. Although when the question who is ultimately responsible for
Duncan 's death is asked, many will point the finger at Lady Macbeth. While she played a role in manipulating and deceiving Macbeth into committing the first act of evil in the book, we are all given free will and with that it was ultimately his final decision to kill Duncan. In the beginning it started with Macbeth being given the
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In Act 1 scene 5 when Lady Macbeth 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" (Shakespeare, I,V,41-44)! She was asking for them to make her strong, to take away her

morality and in its place leave pure cruelty.

When Macbeth finally returned home to his wife she already had a plan to kill Duncan so that

Macbeth would be king and more importantly she would be queen. As much as Macbeth tried to plea

with his wife not to kill the king, that they had what they needed and the king had just recently

honoured him by giving him the title of Thane of Cawdor. However no words could change her mind. It

was not until she questioned his manly hood by saying in Act 1 scene 7 "What beast was 't then that

made you break this enterprise to me? 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 I,VII,53-57). At this point

Macbeth felt like he had no other choice but to please his wife, so he agreed to the plot to assassinate

Duncan and with that threw away any morality he had left in him.

While Lady Macbeth might have been the driving force behind the assassination, it was ultimately

Macbeth who chose to kill Duncan. While it might not have been clear in the beginning he had a deeper

thirst for power than his wife which is prominent in
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