Umm... Alright, for an AP sophomore english class, we had to write a short essay determining who was more evil and who was more responsible for Duncan's death. I'm looking for help on spelling, grammar, and overall quality.
Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway. Were this true, Macbeth would unequivocally be the more wicked between himself and his wife. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness. If this were true, then Lady Macbeth would be considered the more awful. Usually during reading Macbeth, the question arises of who is more guilty of the murder of King Duncan, as well as who is characteristically more “evil.” Both are, without a doubt, contemptible in their own respects but I don't believe that one is necessarily more evil than the other. Neither Lady Macbeth nor Macbeth was entirely responsible for the Death of King Duncan and one is not more cruel than the other: they both feel guilt, they both have at least some desire to murder, and both feel an immense desire to have the crown.
Although it isn't made nearly as clear, Lady Macbeth feels a small bit of guilt before murdering Duncan. She says, shortly before Macbeth enters,
“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!" (I. v. 50-54)
Asking to summon thick clouds of black to the night sky creates an idea that Lady Macbeth is hoping that neither her knife, nor God will see the deed she wishes to commit. However, knives cannot see and it's reasonable to believe that God would be able to see through night and through smoke. If that were the case, then the knife should be regarded as a metaphor, perhaps for her will and Heaven, a metaphor for her conscience. She's making herself into a killer, and yet there is a piece of her that disagrees with what she wants to do. Lady Macbeth's guilt builds up over time until she later succumbs to hallucinations of spots of blood on her hands (“Out, danged spot!”[V. i. 35]). Macbeth, however, feels immense guilt immediately after murdering Duncan. He feels so much guilt, in fact, that he becomes incapable of returning the daggers to Duncan's grooms, and instead submits himself to vivid fantasies of blood on his hands.
“Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.” (II. ii. 57-60)
Their guilt doesn't seem to stop them from having a hand in the murders. . When he attempts to back out later, Lady Macbeth suddenly has a few choice words for him, some questioning his ambition (“Was hope drunk/Werein you dress'd yourself? . . . Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"”(I. vii. 36-44)) while others question his manhood (“What beast was't, then/That made you break this enterprise to me?/When you durst do it, then you were a man;” (I. vii. 48, 49)) while others still questioned his loyalty to her.
(“I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.” (I. Vii. 56-59))
Were she opposed to the brutal murder of King Duncan, she would most likely not have been urging him to do so. Macbeth himself eventually agrees with his wife, soon saying “Each corporal agent to this terrible feat/Away, and mock the time with fairest show:/False face must hide what the false heart doth know.” (I. Vii. 80-82).
“If chance may have me king, why, chance may crown me” (I. Iii. 144). Macbeth is seen saying this, hinting that he doesn't seem to believe that the witches represent fate, or can tell him his fate but instead that they've shown him chance. Even so, he later decides that “chance” needs a bit of assistance and is driven to murder King Duncan for the crown. He sends a letter to his wife, writing, “This have I thought good to deliver/thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou/mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being/ignorant of what greatness is promised thee.”(I. v. 10-13) It seems here that he is writing to offer the idea of her being queen as some sort of gift. Lady Macbeth does indeed enjoy the thought, but worries that her husband is “Too full o' the milk of human kindness/To catch the nearest way” (I. v. 17-18). The nearest way, of course, being murdering Duncan for the crown. Later, Macbeth pays mind to the witches' prophecies of Banquo,
“Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
Not so happy, yet much happier
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!” (I. iii. 65-68)
Macbeth decides that he must kill not only Banquo, but Fleance, too. Macbeth is satisfied that Banquo is dead, but he later orders more assassins to kill the wife and son(s) of Macduff. Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth did terrible deeds while possessed by the idea of protecting what becomes their throne.
Throughout the play, both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth exhibit similar brands of darkness and redemption in roughly equal quantities. However, it is at the hands of Macbeth, and upon his orders that the actual killings are carried out. Likewise, it was Lady Macbeth that persuaded him into action. Without Lady Macbeth's input, Macbeth, perhaps, would not have killed and yet without Macbeth, Lady Macbeth would probably not have had the gumption to murder at all. Singularly, neither party is quite 'evil.' It is only in their union that true evil exists.