King Duncan

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth transition from clean and innocent to dirty and filled with guilt to highlight the thematic element that hands are instruments of death. The first time the motif of hands is introduced is when Macbeth prepares to host King Duncan. To prepare, he must look the part: innocent and clean. He does this in order to appear loyal and respectable. Lady Macbeth orders Macbeth, “your hand, your tongue: look like an innocent flower\ But be the serpent undern’t.”(1.5.64-65). Here, the

“spot” on her hand because it is a piece of evidence of her evil deeds. She is behaving much the same way Macbeth behaved after he had killed Duncan. She is paranoid, restless and repentant. The sins her and Macbeth have committed have depleted26 her peaceful state of mind. Macbeth’s reaction and hers are very similar. However, after Macbeth had killed Duncan, Lady Macbeth was annoyed that he had been so weak to let it get to him. This shows how Lady Macbeth’s character has developed and how the murders

10-12). Shakespeare adds this detail to show Macbeth’s loyalty to his country, and only killed those worthy. He does not carry any guilt, as his reasoning is valid. Macbeth’s second murder is King Duncan. At first, Macbeth does not want to hurt him since he is “his kinsman and his subject/…Besides, this Duncan/Hath borne his faculties so meek,

goes through the play with the intent to become king after he is told his potential prophecy, and does anything to make sure he keeps the crown, which eventually fails. Along his side, Lady Macbeth acts similar to his conscience as he questions the morality of his actions. She also changes from a confident woman to one

suffered consequences as a result of not being able to tell the difference between reality and illusion. At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is trying to convince Macbeth of the plan to get the guards drunk and then blaming the murder of King Duncan on the drunk guards.

begin, Lady Macbeth is at fault for her dramatic demise. This is due to the fact that she coerces Macbeth into killing King Duncan, “Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life/And live a coward in thine own esteem” (Macbeth Act I Sc 7 li. 42-43). This, ultimately, leads to her demise because this act of killing the king is like pushing a boulder down a cliff. After, killing the king, Macbeth becomes more and more power hungry, pilfering more and more lives. This causes an immense amount of guilt to

human looking/soulless. As murderers, they have gone against their own humaneness. The shadow behind the face shows they are only shadows of their former selves. The spooky face also represents the apparitions that Macbeth begins to see after killing Duncan. The guilt Macbeth is haunted with literally comes to life with Macbeth’s introduction of gory

Macbeth's Killing of King Duncan in William Shakespeare's Macbeth The play of Macbeth was technically set in the 11th century (despite showing little indication of the period). The Scottish play was written by William Shakespeare in 1606 and is one of his tragedies, in that the main characters struggle with circumstances and meet death and despair. It was allegedly written for King James 1st by Shakespeare to act as a propaganda tool to basically scare people against

told by the Three Witches he would be king, Macbeth begins to have a deep desire for the throne. As a result, he kills the current king, King Duncan, to take over the throne. Subsequently, the effects of guilt began to appear. Macbeth was talking to Lady Macbeth when he said “I had most need of blessing, and

against the traitorous Thane of Cawdor. He is told by witches he will soon be Thane of Cawdor and even King of norway. As he returns home he is knighted Thane of Cawdor, which reminds him of what those witches had said of him, and who he’ll become. At this moment you can tell greed has taken his mind and twisted he has started thinking of killing the almighty King so he himself shall be king making the prophecies true. He starts to realize what he is thinking, and starts to question himself.