Lady Macbeth Duncan Must Die
Lady Macbeth, A Short Piece
In Shakespeare’s play Lady Macbeth makes the commitment to carrying out the murder suddenly. After reading her husband's letter, almost instantly she gets the idea. Her reasoning is plain: If her husband is to be great, he must be king; if he is to be king, Duncan must die; if Duncan is to die, he must be murdered, but she fears Macbeth is not capable of the act. She must help her husband. She feels it is her duty and her responsibility to do this. First she decides she will push him to the deed with words:
”Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee...”
It is not action yet. She will uses her words to make her husband to act. However, the issue becomes more urgent when it is announced that the king is coming within their reach that very night. It is then that Lady Macbeth makes her frantic, desperate prayer:
”Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from crown to the toe, topfull
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Whatever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, hold, hold! “
Lady Macbeth 'acts' against herself here. She wants the death of such things as her conscience, compassion, kindness, love, and remorse. This is nothing less than the attempted murder of her humanity. Even the images suggest this killing. "Make thick my blood" suggests the congealment of that living liquid; "stop up the access and passage to remorse" is reminiscent of suffocation. She demands her milk be taken as she fears it is of the same "milk of human kindness" which she worries will destroy her husband. Like Macbeth says "stars hide your fires!," she calls for the cover of darkness. She wields the "keen knife," not Macbeth. Whether or not she is truly calling on the supernatural,...