The downfall of Macbeth was a great tragedy. He knew it was not right to kill the king, but he felt he had no other choice. He was trapped into doing wrong. Lady Macbeth gave him the evil ideas throughout the play. She was his driving force. Without her, Macbeth wouldn’t have done what he did. Therefore, Lady Macbeth is as much of a main character as Macbeth is.Macbeth says, “Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires”(1.4.57-58). Here he is expressing that while he does want to become king and may have a few evil thoughts of how to achieve that dream, he does not plan to act on them. It is not until Lady Macbeth talks to him that he is a bit more convinced. Speaking of King Duncan, she states, “O, never shall sun that morrow see!” (1.5.71-72), basically ordering Macbeth to murder him in their own house. Lady Macbeth is obviously the evil one. That is apparent when she gets Macbeth’s letter and responds by saying, “Yet do I fear thy nature. It is too full of the milk of human kindness”(1.5.16-17). This shows that she knows Macbeth will not murder Duncan on his own. She takes matters into her own hands and decides to convince him.Macbeth opens scene seven by giving a long list of reasons not to kill King Duncan. He is his ruler and kinsman, his guest, and a virtuous king. With this list of reasons Macbeth slowly convinces himself not to commit the murder. He then informs Lady Macbeth of his decision to “proceed no further in this business”(1.7.34). Lady Macbeth challenges that and calls him a coward, not a man. She accuses him of going back on his sworn word to her, and with very violent language declares that she would dash out the brains of her own baby, had she promised to as Macbeth had promised to kill Duncan. She then assures Macbeth that failure is impossible, at which point Macbeth is convinced once again to kill the king. ...
