The Insanity Of King Duncan In Shakespeare's Macbeth

Through the soliloquy, the audience gains insight into Macbeth’s innermost thoughts. He names multiple reasons as to why he should not kill King Duncan, noting that Duncan is his guest, kinsman and a good king. He also admits that the only motive he has is the “Vaulting ambition” residing inside of him. Here he names his own hamartia, his fatal flaw, and acknowledges that to give in and commit such a deed, would result in his “deep damnation”. While still undecided on the matter, Lady Macbeth enters, and, seeing his indecision she decides to manipulate him into the decision that suits her; for after all, she is almost if not as ambitious as her husband. By questioning his manhood, his bravery, even their marriage, she successfully leads him to make the choice to kill the king. We now must realise that although the witches’ prophecies and Lady Macbeth’s taunts were a catalyst for Macbeth’s treachery, they never force him to make these errors in judgement; it must have been something that was already inside of him that caused him to decide this. There must have been some inherent evil already a part of his character.

Macbeth is the main character in this Play, he is at the beginning a guy who seems emotionless and cold. He wants to be king and to have the ultimate power, he wants his wife to be happy and proud of him.To achieve all his goals he tries everything to become a friend of the king, duncan, and is really nice to him even thought he just has the ultimate power in his mind. After a while Macbeth is getting tired of always being nice and faking everything so his wife is trying to persuade him to keep doing everything to be king. Macbeth is getting help from three witches who set them all the thoughts about being king in his mind, with his wife many people want to convince him to kill duncan, so Macbeth is under a lot of pressure. At the end of the play when macbeth killed duncan and reached his goal to be king,he is really confident and full of himself what makes him think he can get anything and win everything, but when he fights against Mcduff his head got cut off and he dies.

Macbeth starts to lose his sanity as he plans to kill Duncan. The story begins with three witches giving a prophecy to Macbeth: he will be the Thane of Glamis, the Thane of Cawdor, and King hereafter. Shortly after, Macbeth is named the Thane of Cawdor. He is amazed that the Witches were right, and quickly realizes that in order to fulfill the rest of his prophecy, he must kill the current king, Duncan. Macbeth says to himself, “I am thane of Cawdor. If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair … My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man” (1.3.146-155). Macbeth is frightened by the thought of having to kill Duncan, but he knows that it must be done. Although he has little faith in himself and his abilities, his thoughts and feelings are fairly sane. Lady Macbeth pushes Macbeth to kill Duncan so that he can become the new king; however, Macbeth is too cowardly to do it. After much contemplation, he says that he will not kill Duncan

With attention to the murder of King Duncan, Macbeth struggles with the morality of his actions. Before the murder takes place, Macbeth begins to believe that the murder will “be the be-all and the end-all” to his clear conscious and would risk him to eternal damnation (Act I, line 5). Yet, the murder would bring him power over Scotland and he “shalt be kind” as told by the Weird Sisters(Act 1, line 50). Macbeth goes off of his ambition to murder King Duncan. The internal struggle of choosing mortality over motives brought forth an intense shift of loyalty to betrayal. The murder caused for Macbeth to turn on Scotland and only care for his own selfish motives. The betrayal causes for the play to become horrific and have a double meaning. Macbeth must put on a face to hide his murder to become the king. The double meaning is how Macbeth looks like a hero to all of Scotland, but only the people on the inside know of his horrific actions. He had to murder to to get the position of King, but the

Initially, Macbeth is viewed as a brave and loyal soldier, with Duncan praising him by expressing that “More is thy due than more than all can pay” (1.4.21). At this point, he has not been influenced by the three witches. Yet, by Duncan implying his importance, Macbeth gains a sense of self-worth and this arouses power within. His clear desire to be titled Thane of Cawdor while then having a growing temptation to commit regicide clearly demonstrate the early stages of his corruption and forms a basis for utilizing illegitimate power.

King Duncan was an honest king favored by many. His generosity is shown when he titles Macbeth Thane of Cawdor. King Duncan proclaims, “No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death, and with his former title greet Macbeth” (Shakespeare 8). King Duncan is munificent, but gave Macbeth this title because he cares for the people of Cawdor. He is a fair KingKing since he did this for the better of the people. Morality is proven in the play after King Duncan is rewarded for his great actions. After King Duncan’s death Macbeth states, “So clear in his great office, that his virtues will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against the deep damnation of his taKing-off” (Shakespeare 20). King Duncan was virtuous and was rewarded by being honored and well respected by everyone including his murderer. He was very

After hearing the prophecy that he will become king, Macbeth resolves to leave his future up to fate proving his pride and prestige are very important to him. Once he is told of Malcolm being named successor to the throne, Macbeth decides that if he is going to reach his goal he cannot leave it up to luck. Again Macbeth’s resolve to murder Duncan wavers when he leaves the grand banquet to assess his situation and decide whether he wants to proceed. His arguments include wishing to keep his honor and not kill Duncan for Duncan is there ‘in double trust’. Thus, Macbeth is shown to be clinging to his honor. Finally, Macbeth must stand his ground one last time against his wife who uses tact to emasculate Macbeth. In his final attempt to stop the whole ordeal before it can start Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth that he does not want to ‘cast aside’ the honor he has just recently received. Unfortunately, Lady Macbeth will have none of what her husband is saying and so convinces Macbeth to follow through with his plan of murdering King Duncan. Hence, the audience is given the first example of how powerful selfish motives are and how quickly they can spread to others along with cause them to perform unthinkable

Macbeth’s desire to become king and take the crown from King Duncan ends up hurting him more than helping him. Initially, Macbeth was against murdering King Duncan and didn't think he could do that to his very own king. Lady Macbeth believes that her husband will not go through with his plan however he does end up killing him. She states “Yet I do fear thy nature; It is too full of of the milk of human kindness. As he kills the King he starts to see things like the floating dagger and that seems to make him extremely

Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill king Duncan, so she can live her dream life. “And to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man”(Macbeth 1.7.50-51). This quote explains how Lady Macbeth is trying to persuade her husband in doing the death of king Duncan. One characteristic that sticks out about lady Macbeth, Is that she is a smooth talker to whom she knows she can convince in doing what she won’t do. She tells Macbeth what he wants to hear for her own fame. “And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep”(Macbeth 1.7.61). While Macbeth is shocked and frightened about Lady Macbeth’s thoughts. She explains to him that king Duncan’s death will not be known of them, As why they do it while he is sleeping. Lady Macbeth tells him the future they will have if he does her plan. Now Scotland gets turned upside down. Macbeth kills king Duncan against his will. Lady Macbeth talked Macbeth into killing king Duncan so she would not have to live with the quilt of doing the murder. Lady Macbeth’s plan starts to unravel, As they hear a voice from another room. Macbeth is so out of sorts, that he has left the bloody dagger he use to kill king Duncan at the scene of

‘Macbeth’ is a critically acclaimed drama composed by the renowned playwright William Shakespeare. Introduced as a noble warrior, the eponymous Macbeth is confronted by three witches, who influence Macbeth into committing treason so as to expose his malevolent greed – compelling Macbeth to transform into a power hungry tyrant. In the play, there is moments that can be described as a key scene, which is what the catalyst was for Macbeth’s greed. The key scene in Macbeth is the moment where he decides to kill his own King Duncan, as after the witches explained to him that he could become King, Macbeth decides to take it into his own hands and murder Duncan himself. This in turn, results in Macbeth going on a murder spree which ultimately

Lady Macbeth once again manipulates his weakness to blackmail him into killing King Duncan. This adds on to Macbeth’s character development, because as of now he is still a coward, but later in the play, he becomes a cruel tyrant as shown through murdering Macduff’s family. Therefore, by the acting as the trigger to Macbeth’s ambition and formulating plans that lead to it, evidently highlights the role of Lady Macbeth and the inciting force of her character in the play.

His infidelity breaks the trust between him and Duncan because of his immense betrayal to not only the King, but to the country of Scotland. He quickly becomes a man whom Duncan could no longer rely upon, for this reason, Duncan awards the title to a noble and courageous soldier, Macbeth. Dramatic irony is presented in this line because as Duncan is addressing the unfaithfulness of the old thane, it is followed by the entry of Macbeth to the scene, a man who later misuses his power to betray the King. To Duncan, Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, is appeared to be virtuous and courageous because of his heroic performance in the battle for defeating the opponent, Macdonwald. The King demonstrates his satisfaction towards Macbeth through a conversation with Banquo. He describes Macbeth as “full so valiant, And in his commendations [King Duncan is] fed; It is a banquet to [him]… It is a peerless kinsman.” (1.4.56-60). In this speech, King Duncan truly admires Macbeth’s valiancy and describes him as a man without equal. He congratulates Macbeth for his courage on the battlefield and as followed by the witches’ prophecies of Macbeth, “...All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor…” (1.3.50), he replaces and becomes the new Thane of Cawdor. This speech reveals the gullible nature of Duncan who once trusted the old thane and anew, believes the new thane will be loyal to the country. By all means, Duncan is clueless of

Because Macbeth has the desire to have the throne, he establishes the idea that in order to become king he has to kill king Duncan so that nothing stands in his way of being king.

Macbeth’s mental and moral deterioration throughout the play engages the audience illustrating how guilt overwhelms his conscience He believes he hears voices crying “Macbeth has murdered sleep” this demonstrates how he is battling against his morals and his ambition. His good qualities are battling his bad thoughts and this is the main reason for his mental downfall which makes for a deeply engaging plot. Macbeth goes from being a man of bravery, strength, honour yet he slowly loses these qualities. He once believed that killing a good man was an evil, un-worthy thing to do yet by the end of the play he is killing the people he once had close relationships with to get himself out of the mess that was dragging him deeper into despair and tragedy. This process is enthralling for the audience who cannot resist watching him go to any length to save himself as his morals go into deep decline. Ambition has completely taken over him in the soliloquy in which he states; “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o’erleap itself and falls on the other.” In this instance Macbeth is interesting because he realises that the only thing that is making him want to kill Duncan is

Soon after he achieves the title Thane of Cawdor as predicted by the three witches; whom drive Macbeth’s ambition to murder King Duncan- due to the fulfilment of the witches’ first prophecy, Macbeth is foolish enough to commit to treason and murder King Duncan. The first change of