After Macbeth realizes that his vaulting ambition is too strong to be controlled, he appears to contradict his feeling when he tells Lady Macbeth that he will not proceed in killing King Duncan (31). Actually, Macbeth will proceed as he desires; but he is still bothered by the horror of this deed, and he still fears the consequences. Again, Shakespeare is emphasizing the idea that for a good man to move toward evil is not an easy step to take. Macbeth’s conscience continues to bother him.
Lady Macbeth encourages Macbeth by ridicule. She scorns him for being afraid
(“afeared” – line 39), for being a “coward” (43). The brave Macbeth resents being called a coward, especially by his own wife. But Lady Macbeth tells her husband that only a coward would boast about becoming king at a time when the opportunity did not seem like it would ever happen (51-52). But now that the opportunity has happened (Duncan is in their castle), Macbeth no longer boasts of becoming king. Lady Macbeth then makes a metaphor about the situation. She suggests that a man who behaves so cowardly is not really a man any more than a mother who violently kills her own child is not really a mother (54-59). Essentially, she is telling Macbeth that he is not a real man; for a being a coward is unmanly.
Macbeth is still afraid, though, and he worries about the consequences should they fail. Lady Macbeth, though, is determined. She says they will not fail (61). She has the details worked out. Because everyone in the castle that night will be celebrating Scotland’s victories, she realizes that it will be easy to get Duncan’s guards drunk with “wine and wassail” (line 64 – wassail refers to drinking alcohol in celebration of a person or event). The guards will pass out from drinking, and so Macbeth can easily enter Duncan’s bedchamber and kill him. Lady Macbeth adds that they can place the blame on the guards (71).
Macbeth is surprised by his wife’s cold scheme, and he tells her, “Bring forth men-children only” (72). In other words, Macbeth is stating that his wife has none of that soft and gentle sweetness and kindness associated with the stereotypical woman of the Middle Age. So, all of her children should be boys. Macbeth feels that coldness and cruelty and calculating evil are qualities that should only be found in men. Such qualities are unnatural in women. And Macbeth would hate to see his wife have a daughter with these same qualities.
But Macbeth does have the ability to be as scheming and underhanded as his wife. He adds another point to Lady Macbeth’s plot: Macbeth states that he will use the daggers belonging to the guards to kill Duncan; and, after the murder is committed, he will then smear Duncan’s blood on the guards (7576). Thus, everyone else in the castle will readily believe that the guards are guilty.
Once again Macbeth feels that he is “settled” (79). He believes that he is ready and that his conflict with his conscience is over. But, as events in Act II will reveal, that is not the case.
Macbeth and his wife act together and parallel each other. They both must find the strength to change their essential nature and to push aside their feelings of guilt and horror. But neither Macbeth nor his wife can really accomplish this. In the next act Macbeth’s conscience returns to haunt him; and in the final act of the play conscience haunts Lady Macbeth.