Jack's English Journal

Easter Homework (Unedited)

There could be many characters to blame for King Duncan’s death in the ‘Scottish Play’ or ‘Macbeth’. Some would say that Macbeth is to blame for his dark thoughts and letting his ambition cloud his thoughts. Some could argue that the witches are to blame for planting the seed in his head that he would become King and some would say that Lady Macbeth is to blame for encouraging him to kill King Duncan and fueling his darker side.

In my opinion, Lady Macbeth is to blame and my evidence of this is when Macbeth decides he wants to back out and not kill King Duncan in Act 1 Scene 7.  Macbeth says, ‘We will proceed no further in this business.’  This shows me that Macbeth does not want to kill the King and if he does go on and kill the King, he has been cajoled and manipulated to do so. The only person who has been manipulating and cajoling him to kill the King has been Lady Macbeth and this is why I believe that she is to blame for the King’s murder. Lady Macbeth responds to Macbeth’s withdrawal by saying ‘Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since? And wakes it now to look so green and pale at what it did so freely? From this time such I account thy love. Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valor as thou art in desire? 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,” like the poor cat i’ th’ adage?’. This translates as her saying that he will live as a coward if he doesn’t kill the King and that she will now think of his love as ‘green, pale and fearful’. She asks him if he was drunk when he agreed to commit the act earlier and if he is afraid to act out his desires. This is, in essence, Lady Macbeth manipulating Macbeth to kill the King.

After Lady Macbeth has attempted to manipulated her husband, Macbeth, into murdering the King, Macbeth refuses to be swung in his views. He says ‘Prithee, peace: I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none.’  This translates as Macbeth asking her to stop with the words ‘Prithee, peace’ meaning ‘Please, Stop!’ He then proceeds to say he dares to do only what a man should do and anyone who does more is not a man.  He is still in the mindset of backing out and his clearly quite strong in his views. Afterwards, Lady Macbeth proceeds to try and convince him until Macbeth makes clear his worries of the consequences; he says, ‘If we should fail?’ Lady Macbeth then tries to make him feel confident about killing King Duncan by saying, ‘We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking-place and we’ll not fail.’ This translates as her saying, ‘We, fail? If you get your courage up, we can’t fail.’ The use of the word can’t is key. I think this word alone does enough to swing Macbeth, it expresses her outright confidence that they will kill the King and get away with it. Macbeth finally gives in and decides to go through with the plan, ‘I am settled, and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat.’ He will kill the King.

In the space of one scene Macbeth has gone from absolutely not killing the King to exerting every muscle he has to kill the King. How has this happened? It hasn’t simply happened in his mind. Lady Macbeth has manipulated her husband into killing the King. She must take the majority of the blame for the act that is committed. Furthermore, she shows no remorse nor empathy for the King. She has a fearless greed for power and she is why Macbeth kills the King. Macbeth has to take part of the blame because he takes part in committing the act but, in my opinion, Lady Macbeth must take the blame.

 

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2 responses to “Easter Homework (Unedited)”

  1. jnorth Avatar
    jnorth

    Hello,

    As always, your argument is sound. You show a thorough understanding of the text and use a sophisticated vocabulary to help bolster your position.

    Where your work needs some development should now focus on two areas:
    1) the phrasing you use to present some of your piece is not as sophisticated as your vocabulary choice. This can be tricky to develop but you are certainly capable of doing this. I can help if you come to see me.

    2) the majority of your argument shows quite implicit analysis by inferring meanings and providing direct translation. You can easily make your analysis much more explicit by focusing on figurative and grammatical devices. You and I both know you can do this.

    Hope this helps,

    Mr North

    Reply
  2. Miss Drewett Avatar
    Miss Drewett

    I really enjoyed reading this, it was great to see you focus so specifically on the text and clearly define the development of Macbeth’s decisions from ‘definitely not’ to ‘let’s kill the King’ and most importantly how Lady Macbeth changes his mind. Your understanding of the action is sound and you know where to find your evidence to support this, which is excellent.

    I think what would benefit your writing and your points would be to shorten the quotations and focus more specifically on certain language. As you’ve shown in your last piece of focused language analysis you are very good at picking apart the connotations of the language used. Therefore, you can explain what the quotations mean as well as what they show us about character, e.g. what can we tell about LM calling M a ‘coward’ whereas he addresses her with ‘prithee’?
    I think analysis like this would strengthen and elucidate your argument.

    Your vocabulary choices are sophisticated and aptly match your points. To further improve in this area make sure to reread your work closely so that sentences are succinct and vocabulary is not repeated too often (or too close to each other e.g. cajoled and manipulated).

    Reply

React!