Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can not escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today”. This is true in the civil sense. Even though an individual may seek to avoid being prosecution in criminal law, they must take responsibility of their actions.
In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, one main character named Lady Macbeth tries to avoid responsibility. Lady Macbeth convinces her husband, Macbeth, to murder a king named King Duncan. After many insults and derogatory remarks, Macbeth finally gives into his wife’s pleas. Together, they create a plan, which starts with them inviting the king and his guards over for dinner at their house. When the king goes to sleep later that night, Macbeth will drug the guards then stab the
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king. After murdering Duncan, Macbeth will plant the daggers he used on the guards to make them look guilty. The night comes for Macbeth to fulfill his duties. He murders the king but brings the daggers back to his room instead of following through with the plan. When he arrives at the room to meet Lady Macbeth, she panics. She tells him to “give [her] the daggers” so she can plant them back at the crime scene (Shakespeare 59). After finishing the plan, she confronts her husband for not following through with the plan. She points out that her “hands are of [his] color”, too but “a little water clears [them both] of the deed”,(59). By saying this, Lady Macbeth implies that she is just as involved in this murder as Macbeth is. She thinks she can rinse her hands and everything will wash away because their plan will prevent them from being caught. Unfortunately, she is very wrong. Lady Macbeth starts a slow decent into insanity when her guilt of the murder starts to become too much for her to hide. She finally reached her lowest point- sleepwalking. One of the Gentlewomen, who lives in her house, is concerned for her well being. She says Lady Macbeth is “ [rising] from her bed” and talking “yet all while in a most fast sleep”, (161). The Gentlewomen called a doctor to closely watch her to see if there is anything wrong with her. Lady Macbeth was caught talking of the murders. She envisions a spot of blood that she can not get out of her dress and exclaims “out, damned spot, out!” (163). She continues with “yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”, (163). Deep in her conscience, she knows she is liable for the death of King Duncan, yet tried to hide it in hopes of getting away with her crime. Unluckily for Lady Macbeth, the truth comes out and she admits that she had initiated the murder. Lady Macbeth had gone through her last few days staying away from the prosecution of her actions but, in the end, had to claim responsibility for her own actions. Many news articles explores the concept of inevitable fault while individuals attempt to avoid prosecution.
There is a news article written by Dan Morse titled “Teen Driver in Fatal Alcohol- Related Crash is Sentenced to 18 Months in Jail”. It's about a teenage boy named Austin Donovan Hall and his poor choices. He was at a party where he was drinking and having a great time. A friend of his, Shawn Gangloff, had asked if he could get a ride home from him. The two teens had gotten in the car and Austin drove off, doing 119 miles per hour in a 35 mile zone (Morse). Unfortunately, the car “ went off the road, hitting a tree and a light pole” and ejecting Shawn, who later died of his injuries. As the driver, Austin owns primary responsibility for this accident because he could have no to drinking and driving. Instead, he drove recklessly. Austin did not want to accept the fact that he had killed a young, teenage boy and went to court. He lost and had been charged with 18 months in jail on the counts of “ vehicular manslaughter and... driving” under the influence of alcohol. Austin could no longer avoid the fact that he was liable for his friends death and was forced to take the responsibility. As a result, he was punished for his crime. Another editorial titled “Owen Labrie, Student in Prep School Rape Trial, Breaks Silence After Conviction” is written by Erik Ortiz. It also explores the same ideas that were previously mentioned in the drunk driver article. In this article, an eighteen year old senior, identified as Owen Labrie, was accused of raping a freshmen girl. Owen and the unnamed girl had talked to each other many times before the incident. Owen had asked the girl to go to the school's annual formal with him. Little did the girl know, the formal was a “ritual of sexual conquest” from the seniors to the freshmen. After the formal, Owen and the anonymous girl left. This is when the girl was allegedly raped. Owen was the older person in this situation and, like
the drunk driver, he could have chosen not to go through with his actions. Because of this, he owns primary responsibility of his actions. He was the one who went through with raping a girl but had he said no, this would not have been a problem. Unfortunately, his actions had left a girl vulnerable and traumatized. Because of this, he had to present his case in court. He was offered a “plea deal that would have required him to to admit to having sex with a 15-year-old freshman girl” but in return he would have “sought less than that a month of prison time” and he would not register as a sex offender. He had decided he didn’t want to prosecuted for his actions and denied the plea deal. The trial continued on but finally came to a close a few weeks later. Owen had lost the trial. He was sentenced to one year in jail, he wasn’t allowed to travel worldwide, he had to registered as a sex offender, and had been put on parole and Owens responsibility had caught up with him. No matter how hard Austin or Owen had tried to avoid prosecution, they were still forced to take responsibility for themselves and their actions by serving time in jail. Not only do people try to hide from prosecution and responsibility when dealing with murders or rapes, but also when dealing with abuse. A recent article by Rachel Crosby titled “Two women arrested in separate North Las Vegas child abuse cases” looks into the case of a woman committing child abuse. One lady named Alejandra Robles “was working as an employee at an unlicensed child care business” that was in another woman’s home (Crosby). She was watching many kids when one in particular- a 7 month old, baby boy- started whining and crying. Alejandra had told police that “she had gotten frustrated” at the baby and “dropped him from chest level into a playpen, where he landed on the back of his head and neck” causing severe harm to the baby (Crosby). She had not done anything to contact the parents about the incident and tried to hide it in hopes of avoiding trouble. Things didn’t work out as she hoped. Cops were soon notified and turned up at the scene. Mrs. Robles was arrested one the charge of child abuse “with substantial bodily harm” and is held on a one million dollar bail. Currently, the baby is “in a vegetative state and still at UMC” where they are trying to save his life (Crosby). Although she had tried to hide her crime, she was forced to come forward and claim responsibility for her actions. The same article also talks of another woman who was convicted of child abuse also. Cynthia lavender was watching a 5-month-old baby boy for a friend of hers. She went into the bathroom and “purposefully dropped the baby on his head” because she heard a voice telling her to (Crosby). The baby became unresponsive after hitting his head on the tile floor. The baby “was taken to University Medical Center” after 911 was called. Unfortunately, the baby had died there. Mrs. Lavender had tried to hide her actions by “initially lying during a polygraph test” but was forced to take liability for what had happened. She also confessed to “[throwing] the baby boy against a wall... which may have fractured his legs” earlier in the year (Crosby). After hiding the terrible things that have occurred for a short while, the truth finally came out. Lavender had been “arrested on one charge of murder and three charges of child abuse with substantial bodily harm”, (Crosby). Soon her responsibilities had caught up with her and she was forced to take the punishment of her actions. The news article portrays the idea that no individual can avoid prosecution or responsibility. In conclusion, the articles and the play Macbeth all depict the same idea. An individual must take responsibility of their own actions even though they may try to hide from prosecution. The people in these pieces have to do just that.
When the play started Macbeth was a very loyal person towards the King, therefore the King treated Macbeth like a son. The king tells Macbeth that he is in great debt to Macbeth and there is no amount of money or land to repay Macbeth for his services. Macbeth responds to the King telling him that all he wants is for the King to accept his services and duties to his throne and kingdom (Act I, scene IV). Macbeth shows a great deal of friendliness when he invites King Duncan to his house (Act I, scene VI ). Macbeth is thoughtful and very compassionate in the way of the king but without the King's knowledge he has a plan to kill the King while the King is sleeping.
After the death of King Duncan, Macbeth becomes the more controlling one, and Lady Macbeth’s guilt eventually becomes too much for her to handle which leads to her death. Lady Macbeth is in fact the one that performs the preparations for the murder of King Duncan, but still shows some signs of humanity by not committing the murder herself because he resembles "My father as he slept". After the murder has been committed, she also shows signs of being a strong person because she calms Macbeth down in order to keep him from going insane.
After being told that her husband could potentially be the next king, Lady Macbeth was quick to say that Macbeth should kill King Duncan. Lady Macbeth was the one that came up with the whole plan to kill Duncan and intoxicate the guards, that way it will look like they were the ones who did it. Macbeth killed Duncan, but after doing so he is extremely troubled and stressed out. He comes walking out from the room with the daggers in his hands. Lady Macbeth orders him to go put the daggers back, to which Macbeth refuses. Lady Macbeth grabs the daggers from his hands and goes back to the king’s room to leave the daggers (Act II, scene II). She then proceeds to tell Macbeth to return to bed and if woken up, pretend like they have been sleeping this whole time. Lady Macbeth, even though she should not be in this time period, is the emotionally strong one in her relationship with Macbeth. She keeps her fasade up and we only see her actual feelings a couple times. Despite that, Lady Macbeth is a dynamic character and change quite drastically throughout the play. Lady Macbeth becomes less white-hearted. However, due to the guilt after the murder and the stress from constantly looking after her husband, Lady Macbeth takes her own life (Act V, scene
When Macbeth was off at war, and told Lady Macbeth that the witches greeted him as Thane of Cawdor, and King of Scotland before he received those titles, she was probably scheming on how to fulfill those before he returned home. Once home, they had King Duncan stay at Dunsinane. Lady Macbeth then b-tches at her husband and ridicules his masculinity in order to make him commit murder (Friedlander). Macbeth reluctantly murders Duncan, even though he wanted to wait and have it all play out without killing anyone. When he went to the well to wash off his hands he speaks of his remorse, and lady Macbeth finds out that he did not implicate the guards, so she tells him to go do it.
Macbeth's desire to become king is strongly supported by his wife, Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is a highly ambitious woman who, like her husband, is willing to do anything to obtain power. Shakespeare uses a series of imagery to vividly portray the desire for power in Lady Macbeth's soliloquy: “Come, you spirits/That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,/And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/Of direst cruelty!” To achieve her ambition, Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth “to catch the nearest way.” This means she wants him to kill Duncan so that he can become king. However, she fears that Macbeth is “too full o' th' milk of human kindness” to “catch the nearest way.” When Macbeth is reluctant to kill Duncan, Lady Macbeth starts attacking his masculinity. “Then you were a man,” she said. Lady Macbeth also uses the power of emotional blackmail to manipulate Macbeth into killing Duncan.
Lady Macbeth's Responsibility as for the Actions of Her Husband. Lady Macbeth's responsibility lay in persuading Macbeth to carry out her plans, whilst Macbeth's responsibility was in his actions (the murders). They were both equal in the responsibility of the murders, but they both showed this in different ways. In this essay I will explain the key points showing each of their actions, and I will explain my opinion, of Lady Macbeth and her responsibility.
They say that life is what you make of it. Though there is much in the fabric of Shakespeare’s tragedies that complicates the relationship between action and accountability with regard to the tragic heroes, it cannot be assumed, simply because they find themselves in a difficult position, that they are engulfed and rendered powerless by the events that unfold in their midst. Even Iago, Shakespeare’s evil incarnate, remarks, “ ‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus…we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts” (1.3:316-326). Circumstance, then, simply does not negate guilt or responsibility. Given reason, we are capable both of the good and the evil behavior that seals our fate. This idea is especially important to a moral reading of Macbeth The true calamity of this and all other tragic Shakespearean plays lies not in the circumstances that Macbeth finds himself in, but what he chooses to make of those circumstances. Ultimately, it is Macbeth himself who serves as the instrument of his downfall. By instilling his character with reason, judgment, consciousness, and at least some degree of morality, Shakespeare proves Macbeth capable of resisting the impulse to carry out his infamous dark deeds, and thus implicitly tells us that despite our circumstances, we must all be held accountable (as Macbeth certainly is) for our own actions.
Macbeth, a tragedy play by written William Shakespeare. Throughout the play the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is the engine that drives the tragedy of the play. Macbeth is a play about a Scottish knight named Macbeth who comes back from battle and meets three ‘witches’. They predict that Macbeth shall become king. At first he was skeptical though when it was announced by King Duncan that he will be made Thane of Cawdor, the next in line for king for his bravery on the battlefield he believed that their prediction was possible. With this event Macbeth believes the witches' predictions are true so he informs his wife Lady Macbeth whom upon hearing the news becomes excited and supportive of the idea. The two of them murder Duncan and Macbeth becomes king as the witches foretold and from then on in they lie, kill and create madness so that Macbeth may remain king. At the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth and Macbeth shared a loving relationship in which Lady Macbeth is support of his goals. Their relationship changes dramatically after the murder of King Duncan. They both change as individuals thus changing their relationship. Their destructive relationship influences the murders madness and deaths in the play. The two of them are so ambitious that together they push each other to achieve their goals no matter what.
Lady Macbeth is a vicious and overly ambitious woman, her desire of having something over rules all the moral behaviors that one should follow. On the beginning of the novel, Macbeth receives the news that if Duncan, the current king, passed away he would be the next one to the throne. So, Lady Macbeth induces Macbeth into killing Duncan by filling his mind with ambition and planting cruel seeds into his head. After accomplishing his deed of killing the king, he brings out the daggers that were used during the murder, and says, “I’ll go no more. I am afraid to think what I have done; look on’t again I dare not.” This is his first crime and Macbeth is already filled with guilt and regret. He shows the reader to be the weak one of the duo. Lady Macbeth as the cruel partner still has some sentiment and somewhat a weakness in her heart and mind. When talking about Duncan she says, “Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t.” Weakness is still present and will always be there throughout the novel but this one change the fact that Lady Macbeth is still the stronger and cruel one.
One of the most important themes in Macbeth involves the witches' statement in Act 1, Scene1 that "fair is foul and foul is fair." (Act 1, Scene 1, Line 10) This phrase aptly describes the macabre status quo within the character Macbeth and without. When Macbeth and Banquo first see the weird sisters, Banquo is horrified by their hideous appearances. Conversely, Macbeth immediately began to converse with these universally known evil creatures. After hearing their prophecies, one can say that Macbeth considered the witches to be "fair" when in reality their intentions were quite "foul." Macbeth's possession of the titles of Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland came by foul means. Macbeth became the Thane of Glamis by his father Sinel's death; he became Thane of Cawdor when the former namesake was executed for treason; and he was ordained King of Scotland after murdering the venerable Duncan. Thus, Macbeth has a rather ghastly way of advancing in life.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth tells the story of a general who commits a regicide in order to become king. Early in the play, Macbeth is conflicted as to whether or not he wants to kill his kinsman, the king. In the first two acts Macbeth is not portrayed as a ruthless killer; he is a sympathetic character who succumbs to the provocation of his wife and a prophecy foretold by three mysterious witches. In contrast, Lady Macbeth is a manipulative, immoral woman.
From the beginning of time, mankind has discovered a way to successfully or unsuccessfully reach his goals. In the play, Macbeth, Shakespeare demonstrates the struggles of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth as they try to achieve their goals through creating ambition and committing sin that neither of them were ready for. In the end, the true argument is whether or not they both thought out the plan to achieve their desires or if Lady Macbeth and Macbeth had just followed their instincts as unable rulers did. Throughout the play, the central theme shown is guilt because guilt is the result from both vaulting ambition and a continuing thirst for power.
Lady Macbeth organizes King Duncan's murder, which increases Macbeth's ambition and enables Macbeth to rise up to the ultimate height. The murder is carried out but not as planned and Macbeth is driven to kill the king himself. Macbeth states after everyone found the dead king," Loyal and neutral, in a moment? no man. The expedition of my violent love."
Lady Macbeth is the first to strategize a way to kill Duncan. As a character foil to Macbeth she juxtaposes their possession of guilt and ruthlessness, which creates irony and excitement to the play. Originally, she is very power hungry and wants to utilize her husband’s position in status to become queen. Macbeth objects to the plan to kill Duncan because he believes Duncan is Macbeth’s kinsman, host, and an overall virtuous ruler (Act. 1 Scene. 7) and thus feels very guilty for taking advantage of Duncan’s trusting quality towards the Macbeth family. She refers to Macbeth as weak and rebukes his manhood (Act 1. Scene 7.) . As the play progresses, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have a character role reversal of their possession of guilt and ruthlessness. The character foil is extant, however Macbeth’s ruthlessness overcomes his guilt, and Lady Macbeth’s guilt vanquishes her drive for power. In addition to an alteration in character foils, Shakespeare introduces situational irony because now Lady Macbeth succumbs to the weakness Macbeth once possessed and Macbeth is the one who is formidable and ambitious. Macbeth’s ability to transcend his guilt exemplifies his struggle for power and reinforces the theme of evil ambition because Macbeth is able to secure the throne and power only by mass
In the supernatural play of the book “Macbeth,” when the witches told Macbeth will be king in the future. After that Macbeth had an evil mind that he wants to become the king by murdering Duncan. He told his wife and only person about this, Macbeth treated his wife as his “Dearest Partner of greatness.” After Macbeth told lady Macbeth, lady Macbeth agreed and she said she will help Macbeth to kill Duncan. But after a while, Macbeth realized his king is a kind and grateful king. He has lost his reason of killing the king. But lady Macbeth didn’t give up, she thinks her husband is too kind heart and she should deal with all the dirty work. She killed Duncan using her own filthy hands. After the death of Duncan, Macbeth is now the new king.