Saturday, April 28, 2012

What are three ways in which Lady Macbeth influences Macbeth to kill people?

Lady Macbeth attempts to take control of everything, she wounds Macbeth's pride, and she uses guilt to try to coerce him to kill Duncan.  When he first arrives home, she tells him exactly how to act and what to do.  She says,



"you shall put / This night's great business into my dispatch, / Which shall to all our nights and days to come / Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom" (1.5.79-82). 



She wants Macbeth to let her make all the decisions about the evening, presumably including the murder of Duncan as well, because she believes that tonight will change all their future days and nights for the better (because it will lead to them becoming king and queen).  In attempting to control everything, she seems to try to make it very easy for him to go along with her plans.


Later, when Macbeth tries to back out of their plan, Lady Macbeth tells him that if he doesn't go through with it, he will have to "live a coward in [his] own esteem" and that his hope must have been drunk when he committed, though now it "look[s] so green and pale / At what it did so freely" (1.7.47, 1.7.41-42).  Further, she says that "When [he] durst do it, then [he was] a man" (1.7.56).  In other words, he will not really be a man if he doesn't go through with the murder, and he will have to think of himself as a coward for the rest of his life.  In wounding his pride this way, Lady Macbeth attempts to compel him to recommit to their plan.


Finally, she tries to guilt-trip Macbeth into killing Duncan.  She says that she would kill her own baby if she had promised him she would rather than renege on that promise, "had [she] so sworn as [he] / [Has] done to this" (1.7.66-67).  In other words, she wants him to feel really guilty for promising her that he would do something and then backing out.  Lady Macbeth also says, "From this time / Such I account thy love" (1.7.42-43).  So, she says that he must not love her very much if he is willing to be such a coward and break a promise to her.  By trying to make him feel guilty and wounding his pride, Lady Macbeth successfully appeals to Macbeth to proceed with Duncan's murder.

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