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Who Killed King Duncan in William Shakespeare's Macbeth Essay

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Who Killed King Duncan in William Shakespeare's Macbeth

Who was too blame for the Murder of King Duncan? There are four major factors in the murder Lady Macbeth, Fate, the Witches and Macbeth himself.

Macbeth himself committed the murder of Duncan so of course has some of the blame for the murder. His ambition and his thrust also made him do the crime. For Macbeth when the bait was dangled in front of him he could not resist taking a bite for when he knew that he had been made Thane of Cawdor and one prophecy had come true he wanted the next prophecy to also be true. At the point Macbeth is told he will be Thane of Cawdor by the witches there is dramatic irony because the audience already …show more content…

Lady Macbeth hiding behind her façade of beauty and simple minded charm, when underneath she is a woman who can seize the moment, the time, a cold blooded killer. The witches also hide behind something, they refuse to hide themselves so they place hidden meaning in their words. Deceiving and destroying they are in essence everything a 'witch' was at the time the play was written.

Lady Macbeth is one of the main factors in Duncan's murder as she consistently rips Macbeth apart and originally put the idea into Macbeth's head. She consistently criticizes Macbeth and puts him down. When Macbeth originally writes to Lady Macbeth telling of the Witches and their prophecies she is full of an intense ambition and when she hears of King Duncan's visit she is teeming with an awesome desire and urge to be Queen. She calls upon the witches of whom she has never seen nor heard speak and she tells them to fill her to the brim with evil. Later on in the play (Act 1 scene 7) when Macbeth flinches from killing Duncan, Lady Macbeth says 'Does unmake… done to this' lines 54-59 she says that she would rather batter her child's brains out just after it has suckled from her. This shows how far she wishes to go to reach her ambition.

The witches are also to blame for putting the ideas and aspirations into Macbeth's head. They manipulate him like a puppet using him for their own

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