about King Duncan’s kind-hearted and trusting character, and how he considers him to be a King of almost divine excellence. Macbeth then studies his own despicable motive for killing the King, and he can only find one pathetic reason. He refers to this as his ‘vaulting ambition’, and he realises now that such a high vault could only lead to a fall with undoubtedly severe consequences. Macbeth finally makes his decision on this matter and tells his wife:‘We will proceed no further in this business’This is the most decisive Macbeth has ever been in the play, and so he starts to think highly of himself for standing up to his dominant wife for once. He obviously didn’t think about the consequences of his actions and was totally unprepared for the fury and insults his wife was about to give him. Lady Macbeth uses a wise way of convincing Macbeth to change his mind to kill the King. She picks on three main points which, by the end of her speech, breaks down Macbeth and so once again she gets her own way. The first point is when Lady Macbeth says:‘From this timeSuch I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valourAs thou art in desire?’What she is saying to Macbeth here is ‘if you don’t do it, then you don’t love me’. This influences him because he does love his wife and he doesn’t want to lose her affection. So this helps to change his mind. The second point is probably the most influential issue of the three; this is when Lady Macbeth says:‘Wouldst thou have thatWhich esteem’st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’,Like the poor cat i’ the adage?’What Lady Macbeth is doing here is calling Macbeth a coward. This would deeply offend him because it is insulting his manlihood and is basically challenging his right...
