How does lady Macbeth convince Macbeth to murder duncan?

Answer 1

By questioning his manhood. She references a previous agreement that they made to kill Duncan, but Macbeth tries to back out of it and she in turn pretty much asks him if he is a man or not. She says that he promised to kill him and he didn't and a real man keeps his promises. All of these things questioning Macbeth's manhood and he eventually gives in. This is a common theme in all of Shakespeare.

Answer 2

She belittles him into the murder because she thinks he is "too full of the milk of human kindness" to do it willingly. She makes him feel weak and says "You are not a man." Meaning he is feeble, also she calls him a coward.

She says "Had he not resemble my father as he slept I'd have done it myself." this is an attempt to bully/peer pressure Macbeth into doing it, so he thinks that if his wife can do it then so can he.

She says "I have given suck, and know

How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me.

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums

And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you

Have done to this."

This means she's had a baby suckling her but she is so ruthless she could have slashed out the baby's brain. She says this to prove her bravery, hoping it will help Macbeth to find his feet.

In addition to this she says "Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under't" Which basically means look innocent but be evil.

This also may have religious connotion too because the serpent relates to the snake in the Adam and Eve story. Also the flower represents innocent living nature yet Macbeth is being told to take someone's life away. Lady Macbeth is very good at helping him commit this murder and he eventually absorbs this and does as he is bid.

Answer 3

Lady Macbeth's means of persuading Macbeth have nothing to do with logic and everthing to do with emotion. In Act 1 Scene 7, Macbeth persuades himself logically that he should not murder Duncan and tells his wife "We shall proceed no further in this business" Then she lets the storm loose. Her principal attack is on his masculinity, suggesting that he just doesn't have the guts for the murder, and that makes him less manly. She claims that he has promised her that he will murder Duncan (he hasn't, but she doesn't give him a chance to realize this) and this makes him a liar and a promise-breaker. She implies that she as a mere woman could do more than he is being asked to do with her hair-raising line "I have given suck and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums and dashed the brains out had I so sworn as you have done to this." Ouch.

Macbeth stops trying to argue with her on these grounds and comes up with the wimpy "If we should fail?" And at this point, Lady Macbeth knows she's got him hooked because he is not arguing whether to do the murder but how to deal with the risks. Here she turns on the charm and focuses her argument on the short-term obstacles to the plan, the guards, who she will drug. There will be no problem, the murder will be easy. Even though Macbeth has reviewed in his mind the long-term consequences of the murder ("that this blow might be the be-all and the end-all here") and knows that they are all bad for him, he is induced by the flood of passion coming from his wife to forget about them. She is thinking fast, and he cannot think fast enough to put forward the arguments which he knows to be true. He therefore succumbs. Her technique is like that of a high-pressure salesman.

Therein lies the tragedy, folks. Macbeth thinks deep, but Lady Macbeth thinks fast. He has the better judgment but she can persuade him to act against it. In fact, far from being able to murder her baby, Lady Macbeth would not have the guts to murder Duncan "Had he not resembled my father as he slept I had done't". She has not for one moment considered the ramifications of the murder except for the vision of herself in a crown. When Macbeth kills the grooms, she is shocked and horrified. She faints. She did not see that this (and more killing) would be necessary to continue with their plan. Macbeth saw it clearly: "But we do but teach bloody instruction here which, being taught, returns to plague the inventor. This even-handed justice commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice to our own lips." If you kill a king, others can kill kings. If you get your crown with violence, you must hold it with violence.

Answer 4

She manipulates him. She tells him he's a coward, and that he's cruel for breaking a promise to her, because she says she'd kill her own child if she promised it to Macbeth.

The fact she calls him a coward and that convinces him is because Macbeth has pride. Macbeth is a noble soldier and being belittled the way she does to him, it makes him feel terrible and that he wants to prove something, and Lady Macbeth knows this, so uses it to her advantage.

Answer 5

Tells him that he isn't a man if he does not kill duncan

Answer 6

She tells him that he is unmanly. By doing so, she convinces him to commit the murder or he will no longer be worth anything.

Answer 7

She said Duncan looked too much like her father, and she insulted him to pressure him to murder Duncan