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Who Was Responsible For Macbeth's Downfall

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Macbeth himself was the biggest factor to his downfall due to the consequences of his decisions. This was first shown when Lady Macbeth says “From this time Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valor.” (Shakespeare 1,7,38) Lady Macbeth states that Macbeth is too afraid to act under his own power to obtain the crown. The reason this is an internal force is because Macbeth allows himself to be easily manipulated into doing the wrong thing. At the same time, he is so easily manipulated that he must have some desire of his own to go through with killing Duncan. The final decision is up to him, therefore he has a choice whether he wants to kill duncan or not, but he does not want to seem cowardly and he lets …show more content…

The first external conflict introduced in the story was through the Weird Sisters, who appear in front of Macbeth and state “First Witch- All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis! Second Witch-All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! Third Witch-All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!” (Shakespeare, 1,3,49-51) The Sisters introduced the prophecies to Macbeth and Banquo, creating the first external force in the play, which causes Macbeth to act irrationally, and Macbeth’s downfall was due to him trying to fulfill these prophecies under his own power, rather than letting fate take control. The second, and more prominent, external force was Lady Macbeth. Her manipulation helped push Macbeth to make decisions he possibly would not have have gone through with. The first time Lady Macbeth is introduced she states, “Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness”(Shakespeare,1,5,16-17) Lady Macbeth says to herself that she doesn’t believe that Macbeth will be able to go through with killing Duncan due to his kind nature. This is foreshadowing that she will have to step in to play a role in convincing Macbeth to go through with killing duncan, which is the decision that spiraled into other problems, such as paranoia and the downfall of Macbeth. The first time that Lady Macbeth attempts to manipulate Macbeth in person she says “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.” (Shakespeare,1,7,49-51) Lady Macbeth is trying to convince Macbeth to go through with killing Duncan, after Macbeth is having second thoughts. This demonstrates that Lady Macbeth has a great influence on Macbeth and could possibly be the reason for his downfall, because if she had not convinced Macbeth to go through with it he may have never killed Duncan. At least one of these external forces

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