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Is Lady Macbeth To Blame

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Many times the actual person who commits a crime is not considered the main party responsible, as there can be many outside influences that may have distorted the person's view of the world. In Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, Lady Macbeth is the one who is ultimately responsible for the murder of King Duncan, as her manipulative influences are the only reason Macbeth killed the King. Lady Macbeth shows she is responsible through her manipulation of Macbeth, and her plotting and covering up of the murder shows how she is the responsible for the murder.

Lady Macbeth’s manipulative tendencies forced Macbeth to kill King Duncan, after he had already said he would not. When she say “ Wouldst thou have that / Which thou esteem’st the / ornament of life, / And live a coward in thine own esteem, / Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would ,“ (Mac.1.7.41-44) she is manipulating Macbeth into a completely different way of thinking. She insults him making him think he isn’t worth anything unless he kills Duncan, saying “What beast was ’t, then, / That made you break this enterprise to me? / When you durst do it, then you …show more content…
She drugs the servants, saying “I have drugged their possets, / That death and nature do contend about them, / Whether they live or die” (Mac.2.2.6-9), making sure that there is no interference and that there is no reason for Macbeth to back out. She is removing any possibility of failure, and even after the murder she says “Give me the daggers” (Mac.2.2.53), and proceeds to lay out the knives Macbeth used to kill Duncan, framing the murder on the servants instead of herself or Macbeth. When she takes the daggers and drugs the servants, she is doing to most complex and delicate part of the crime. Her job is by far the hardest, and she does it without a second thought. She is clearly responsible for the murder, and she still does more to cover

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