The struggle for power in
Macbeth’s ambitions are now stronger than his conscience. The witches have tempted and controlled him with the idea of becoming king. Lady Macbeth manipulates him to overcome his natural hesitation to commit murder. Due to his manipulation, Macbeth chooses the crown over his honor and material gain in this world over salvation in the next world. Once he has killed to get the crown, the other crimes seem inevitable. In order to keep what he has taken, Macbeth learns to lie and kill as a matter of course. His values become totally confused. "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" to him now; he has lost track of the difference. By the end of the play, manipulation by others has completely consumed Macbeth. Once Macbeth kills Duncan, he is committed to a course of lying and killing. His sense of right and wrong is eaten away. Even before Macbeth is killed, he is dying of a diseased spirit. Scotland is also infected, and Macbeth is its disease. Macbeth is a prime example of the corruption of power, and how absolute power corrupts absolutely. Shakespeare’s play Macbeth is a study of manipulation, control, and power. It shows how individuals can control the mind and actions of others. That control when evil, can create not only turmoil wit . . .
Lady Macbeth was able to control her husband but once she became no longer involved in the decisions of his life, and the last decision she made for him was evil all Macbeth’s following decisions are overwhelmingly evil also. This becomes evident when she says to him, You shall put / This night’s great business into my dispatch(1. Macbeth defends himself by explaining that he is doing all that can be expected of a man and if he does more then no man shall he be, she claims that no ‘real’ man would back down and refuse to follow through with an act he had agreed to. It is Lady Macbeth who comes up with the plan to kill Duncan, because she knows that Macbeth would never commit such an act on his own without her pushing him to because Macbeth’s nature “is too full o’ the milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way” (1. He goes on with his plans to kill Banquo and later decides to kill Macduff's family in the following lines; The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. She intends to keep him under her control by making decisions for him and not allowing him to think for himself. Once Macbeth follows through with his wife's plan to murder the king he is filled immediately with guilt, unlike his wife who says, “A little water clears us of this deed” (2. The struggle for power and control in Shakespear’s Macbeth is evident from the beginning as Macbeth strives to be crowned by chance and Lady Macbeth prefers a slightly quicker more violent approach. 147,153) Macbeth is able to not only kill men of his own size but also women and small children, which shows how far he has come since Lady Macbeth’s ‘little’ push to kill Duncan. In fact, Lady Macbeth urges him to forget what has happened in the past and move on.
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