Saturday, May 16, 2015

Is there any evidence in Macbeth that Macbeth wants to be King but he just needs Lady Macbeth's support/ push?

Also, there is the very telling soliloquy that Macbeth
shares with the audience in Act I, scene vii.  He
says:



If it
were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well


It were done
quickly.  If the assassination


Could trammel up the
consequence...


We'ld jump the life to
come.



This is an important
moment in which Macbeth is alone onstage with the audience.  Lady Macbeth has suggested
to Macbeth her scheme, and he has merely answered "We will speak further."  But in this
speech, he considers the probably consequences of murdering Duncan, and they are not
favorable.  But still he admits his desire to proceed in order to be King.  He
concludes:


readability="9">

...I have no spur


To
prick the sides of my intent, but only


Vaulting ambition,
which o'erleaps itself


And falls on the
other.



It is at this moment
that Lady Macbeth enters and though Macbeth's soliloquy seems to have convinced him not
to proceed with the murder ("We will proceed no further in this business"), by the end
of the exchange he is decided.


readability="8">

I am settled, and bend
up


Each corporal agent to this terrible
feat.



So, though he admits
the ambition to commit the murder, it does take, as you say, the support and push of
Lady Macbeth to bring the deed about.

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