Before he makes his way home, Macbeth sends a letter to Lady Macbeth stating the happenings with the witches and the message of the king for him; after the witches tell Macbeth of his fate, they vanish into thin air and the messenger of the king comes with the news, confirming the prophecy concerning being the Thane of Cawdor. Lady Macbeth is aware that the path to power is through bloodshed, which she approves and encourages Macbeth to accomplish while they receive King Duncan as a guest in their house. In a scene where Macbeth and Lady Macbeth talk on how they should approach the situation, Macbeth says that he cannot follow through with this scheme for it is against the law of honor to murder a king who has done a country nothing but good and is acting as an honored guest. Lady Macbeth then replies “was the hope drunk Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?
Lady Macbeth is said to be the most ambitious in the play and that definitely shows throughout. At the beginning of the play its easily shown that Macbeth was heavily influenced by his wife’s ideas. Further into the play, Macbeth was kind of reluctant about going through with killing Duncan because if he did that, he had the risk of losing the positive opinions people had about him. His wife knew what his weak spot was and once she heard about his hesitance about killing Duncan, she went straight to attacking his courage. She says that she herself would kill her own child in order to achieve her own goals.
In the tragedy Macbeth, illustrated by William Shakespeare is about Macbeth and his lack of integrity which leads to him murdering the King of Scotland Duncan. Shakespeare has demonstrated the thematic message of integrity where one’s lust for power and at large ambition leads to the destruction of himself and others. Three significant scenes were elaborated in order to demonstrate Macbeths integrity; Act 1 scene 2, Act 1 scene 7 and Act 5 scene 7 were the scenes. Throughout the play Shakespeare has successfully used literary devices to construct and develop the thematic message relating to Integrity in Macbeth. This concept of Macbeths lust for power and at large ambition is first conveyed in Act 1 scene 2.
There are only a few ways that this can happen. Lady Macbeth wants to pursue the means of the death of King Duncan. Macbeth has already shown his respect to King Duncan earlier in the play so that makes it harder for him commit the murder. Lady Macbeth starts to intervene in the situation and proclaims to Macbeth, “what cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan? What not upon his spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt of our great quell?” (1.7.69-72).
She is the person who urges Macbeth to murder King Duncan. The reason she does this is on the grounds that she needs more power and needs to wind up ruler. Woman Macbeth supports him by saying things like "… resemble the blameless bloom yet be the serpent under it"(act 1 scene 5 lines 72-73). By saying this, she is urging him to murder individuals so as to end up lord. Macbeth has a few fears about murdering the lord yet Lady Macbeth addresses his masculinity by letting him know that on the off chance that he was a genuine man, he would slaughter him.
William Shakespeare used ambition as a tool to keep his audience engaged as they read Macbeth. Throughout the course of the play, Macbeth, has high aspirations about his future goals. The entire play is built around this war hero that desires the role of royalty. After Macbeth observed the witches’ prophecy he demanded the throne. The prophecy is interpreted by Macbeth as though no one can harm him.
He experiences guilt and questions whether or not he should go through with killing Duncan. If Macbeth were a good man, he would “yield when he/ Knows his course is wrong” (Sophocles), but he does not yield. Macbeth recognises that killing Duncan is wrong, but he does it anyway, therefore making it awfully conflicting to support him, as he is the central character of the play, thus the title. It is the action of killing and going through with his thoughts that makes him good or evil. We all have questionable thoughts go through our heads, but it is the decision to act upon them which makes a person good or the opposite.
In the beginning of the play we see that Macbeth has done a good deed for Scotland and receives applause from King Duncan. “But all’s too weak; For brave Macbeth…” (Macbeth, I, ii, 15-16). In addition to this, Macbeth was greatly struggling with moral conflicts when he was deciding to kill King Duncan. He had not gained any significant power, but it was clear he had basic morality. After killing King Duncan, he obtained the position of king and did not look back.
She goes from motivating Macbeth to kill King Duncan in order to be king, to being too big of a coward to kill King Duncan, and finally to having dreams of contrition. So in conclusion having too much ambition
In the beginning of the play, Macbeth meets the three witches, who told him that he would be the King of Scotland. Macbeth ends up murdering King Duncan. In the middle of the play, Macbeth keeps getting over confident in himself and ends up murdering more people for the power of Scotland. In the end of the play, there are many people that are against Macbeth and he ends up losing his life in the process for power. The beliefs in supernatural caused Macbeth downfall throughout the play “we so fully feel that any glimpse into the spirit-world would effect in ourselves a profound mental revulsion, that we intuitively extend to Macbeth a more indulgent opinion of his great crimes” (Bucknill).