This essay argues that Lady Macbeth bears full moral responsibility for the murder of King Duncan in Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth, even though her husband physically commits the crime. Drawing on three key moments in the play, the paper examines how Lady Macbeth first recognizes and exploits her husband's "too-kind" nature, then actively manipulates him into carrying out the assassination through emotional coercion and false accusations of broken promises. Finally, the essay considers Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene as evidence that her guilty conscience confirms her own sense of culpability, suggesting she would qualify as a co-conspirator under modern criminal law.
Reading The Tragedy of Macbeth, even a modern-day audience is struck by the manipulative efforts of Lady Macbeth, whose scheming appears to drive her husband to commit horrible acts, including murder. First, Lady Macbeth is aware of her husband's nature and is concerned that he is not sufficiently hardened to seize power. Next, she clearly pushes her husband into committing the murder. However, Lady Macbeth's apparent guilt by the end of the play makes some people question how much responsibility she bears for her husband's actions, because she shows more remorse than he does. Rather than suggesting that she is not responsible for her husband's actions, Lady Macbeth's guilty conscience actually helps demonstrate that she was as responsible for Duncan's murder as her husband. All three of these factors combine to make it clear that Lady Macbeth is responsible for the murder of Duncan, even though her husband committed the actual crime.
When Lady Macbeth is first introduced, she immediately makes her feelings about her husband and his ambitions clear. Speaking of her husband, she says:
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promis'd. Yet do I fear thy nature,
It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it. What thou wouldst
Highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win. (I.v, 15–22)
She knows that her husband has both the ambition and the skill to become a great leader. However, she feels that Macbeth is too soft-hearted and honest to be able to take his position. This is at a point in the play where Lady Macbeth is speaking to herself — she is not adjusting her behavior to fit anyone else's expectations. Even so, she demonstrates a level of cunning and manipulative thinking that makes clear she disapproves of the gentler aspects of her husband's nature.
Then, when she hears that Macbeth is about to arrive, she pleads with the spirits to transform her into the type of person who can act without remorse, so that she may help her husband gain power. She pleads:
Come you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here
And fill me from the crown to the toe topful
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
Stop up th' access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th' effect and [it]! (I.v, 40–47)
Lady Macbeth is aware that the actions she plans to undertake are ones that would normally cause a person to feel remorse, but she asks the spirits to intervene and keep her from that feeling. This demonstrates that she already harbors the intent to cause Duncan's death, even though the reader does not yet know the means she has chosen. Contrasted with her earlier statements about her husband's too-kind nature, it is clear that Lady Macbeth is the person who first manifests evil intent towards Duncan.
Of course, if Lady Macbeth had kept her plotting secret and never involved her husband in her plans, Duncan would not have died. Lady Macbeth did not have the resources to commit the murder herself. It is unclear whether this was due to her lack of physical strength or to the fact that she knew she would feel remorseful about the act — and perhaps felt that indirect involvement would insulate her from feelings of guilt. Whatever her motivation, it is clear that Lady Macbeth does not believe she can kill Duncan on her own. She therefore begins to coach her husband, persuading him that he must kill Duncan in order to take his place as king.
As soon as Macbeth returns home and tells Lady Macbeth that Duncan is coming, she begins plotting the king's death. Macbeth tells his wife that Duncan is coming to spend a night and leaving in the morning. Lady Macbeth responds:
O, never
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue; look like th' innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't. He that's coming
Must be provided for; and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch,
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom. (I.v, 60–70)
Macbeth shows no ill intent towards his king when he informs his wife that Duncan will be an overnight guest, but Lady Macbeth immediately responds by instructing him to act as a serpent towards the king. Although Macbeth enters the scene already contemplating assassination, by the time Lady Macbeth confronts him he has made up his mind that they will not kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth then goads him, implying that if he does not kill Duncan, he does not love her. She demands:
What beast was't then
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place,
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me;
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, 48–59)
The imagery she chooses is incredibly vivid as well as deeply manipulative. Nowhere has Macbeth actually promised her that he would kill Duncan; at the very most, he promised that they would further discuss the matter. Yet she acts as if his refusal to kill the king is an act of personal disloyalty, declaring that she herself would kill her own innocent child if she had sworn to her husband that she would do so. In the face of that kind of declaration of loyalty, Macbeth's refusal to kill Duncan could only be interpreted as a betrayal.
"Sleepwalking scene reveals her deep guilt over Duncan's death"
Although Lady Macbeth is not physically responsible for Duncan's murder, her actions in The Tragedy of Macbeth make it clear that she is morally responsible for his death, and would even be considered a co-conspirator under modern criminal law. First, Lady Macbeth assesses her husband's soft nature and resolves to harden herself so that she can push him toward seizing power. Next, she introduces and develops the idea of assassination with her husband, goading him with a promise he never actually made in order to frame his refusal as disloyalty. Finally, Lady Macbeth's own subconscious behavior during the sleepwalking scene reveals the depth of her guilt; she tries to wash her hands clean of blood, even though she never literally bloodied them. These three elements make it clear that Lady Macbeth was at least as responsible for Duncan's death as her husband, even though she was not physically involved in the murder.
You’re 86% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 1 section.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.