Skip to main content

If Macbeth wrote a diary entry, what would he say about how his wife made him feel and how she persuaded him to go through with the murder?

When Macbeth returns home shortly before Duncan arrives, Lady Macbeth is ready to kill Duncan so Macbeth can ascend to the throne. Macbeth is less certain. Duncan is a good king; Macbeth is his loyal subject. Cold-blooded murder could condemn him to hell for all eternity.


Lady Macbeth knows her husband well, though. First she attacks his manhood. When he says, “We will proceed no more in this,” she accuses him of being afraid.



“Art thou afeard


To be the same in thine own act and valour


As thou are in desire?...Wouldst thou…live a coward in thine own esteem,


Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would…’”



Macbeth argues that he is a courageous man even though he has changed his mind about killing Duncan.


Lady Macbeth then personalizes her attack and accuses him of not loving her in addition to being a coward. “What beast was’t, then,/That made you break this enterprise to me?”


She goes on to claim that she would have smashed her own child’s brains out before she would ever break a promise to Macbeth the way Macbeth is breaking his oath to her.


Macbeth confesses his fear that they will fail, and she eases this fear with her detailed plan. This is the final piece that convinces Macbeth his wife is right. He concludes he will be a better man for having taken action to achieve his goals, even if that action is murder, and the plan is almost foolproof, so he is in little personal danger of getting caught.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more