Saturday, June 8, 2013

How responsible for Macbeth's actions is Lady Macbeth?

Difficult to say, really.

THe idea of murdering Duncan occurs to Macbeth before Lady Macbeth is even introduced into the play: just after he's heard the witches prophesy that he will be king, he soliloquizes:

...Why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature?

He's thinking about a murder. No prizes for guessing whose. And he writes to Lady M to tell his "dearest partner of greatness" about the prophecies. She resolves to get him "the golden round" which he is promised. And she seems to rather take over the plan, organising the means, the method, and the how-to of murdering Duncan. But Macbeth had the idea already.

The one point where she does seem key is in Act 1, Scene 7, when Macbeth backs out of the murder altogether, and she launches a ferocious assault on his manhood, on his honour, and finally, plays the card of their (recently deceased) child:

I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.

Macbeth is back on board. He does the murder.

And then after that, it's Macbeth's game. She, in fact, is isolated from his decisions and his life: he doesn't ever tell her about Banquo's murder. Act 3, Scene 2 shows him openly rebutting her.

How responsible is she? Well, she has no influence late in the play, but she might well have some early on. How much? Would he have done it without her? Impossible precisely to say.

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