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What Causes Lady Macbeth To Blame

Decent Essays

“Although tricked by the witches, Macbeth can blame no-one but himself for his own tragic downfall.”
Macbeth is a play that was written hundreds of years ago by William Shakespeare and although it is old, it can teach us about greed and guilt. Macbeth was tricked by the witches, who play a major part in his tragic down fall- which is ultimately his death and the death of many others, but it does not mean that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth do not also play significant roles in this tragedy.
Lady Macbeth is what brought out the underlying evil in Macbeth, she does this by emotional and mental manipulation, therefore ‘playing’ on his emotions to get what she wants. This is shown when she emotionally blackmails him playing on his guilt by saying things such as ‘’I would, while it was smiling in my face, have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.” This quote means that if Macbeth had asked Lady Macbeth to do as she had asked him, she would rather kill her breastfeeding baby than to break her promise. Once Macbeth has killed the king he feels enormous guilt and Lady Macbeth is …show more content…

The witches’ false confidence in Macbeth in turn instilled confidence in himself, which helped him to commit the murders as he believed he was safe. The prophecies that gave Macbeth unnecessary confidence were “Beware Macduff!”, “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth” and “Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until the Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill Shall come against him.” Although these prophecies are true, although they are a play on words and allowed the witches to confuse Macbeth. If the witches had not intruded and given these prophecies to Macbeth, the acts of murder may not have been committed as he wouldn’t have enough confidence in the idea of him being king to kill to get

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