Macbeth wants very badly to be king of Scotland, but Lady Macbeth wants even more desperately to be queen. Both of them are very ambitious people who believe that being king and queen will make all their dreams come true.
Macbeth, however, is more able to imagine the downside of murdering Duncan, and he is more sensitive to the good Duncan has done in making him Thane of Cawdor. Therefore, he wavers on the murder plan and, in fact, decides not to go through with it.
This does not suit Lady Macbeth at all. She does everything in her power to manipulate Macbeth into striking while Duncan is their guest, and they have easy access to him. She knows it is now or never. She also understands her husband. He is a warrior and a "manly" man: after all, he has just cleaved the traitor, Macdonwald, in half. Therefore, she appeals to his masculinity. She says that she, a woman, would rip her baby from her breast and dash its brains out if she had promised she would. If she, a mere woman, could do that—a manly, "unsexed" act in her culture—what was wrong with Macbeth that he couldn't murder the king when he had said he would?
Macbeth is impressed with his wife's display of "masculine" hard-heartedness and courage, and says he hopes their children will be sons. Her ploy of threatening to "out-masculine" him works. Not willing to look less manly than his wife, Macbeth goes through with the killing, even though he knows it is only the beginning of the blood he will have to shed to hold the throne.
Ironically, for all her bold words, Lady Macbeth is the one who cracks under the guilt of having plotted Duncan's murder and commits suicide.
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