Macbeth: Fear and CowardiceWilliam Shakespeare's great tragedy, Macbeth is a play based more on character than action. The play is a journey through Macbeth's life, starting at the height of his career and following him until his demise. The cause of this sudden deterioration has been debated for centuries. Some attribute Macbeth's rapid degeneration to ambition. While Macbeth is not without ambition, this is not the essential element that causes his demise. It is fear that permeates Macbeth: total cowardice pushes his will to sinful acts that lead to regression. Cowardice, not ambition, is the main and underlying factor that drives Macbeth to kill Duncan, to murder Banquo, and to seek the help of the witches. Duncan's murder is prompted more by fearful confusion than by Macbeth's "vaulting ambition" (I. vii.27). After hearing the witches' prophetic greeting, Macbeth is lulled into a "fantastic" mood (I.iii.139). He reflects on the regicide, that "[s]his only state as a functioning man / Is smothered in suspicion" (I.iii.140-41). During the events heralding Duncan's murder, Macbeth undergoes five second thoughts before deciding that "[they] will proceed no further in [that] matter" (I.vii.31). The hesitation to kill Duncan is the first symptom of Macbeth's fearful confusion. What makes Macbeth suddenly change his mind and kill Duncan? Macbeth is a weak man whose “dearest companion of greatness” is his wife (Iv10). Value his opinion above all else. After rejecting the murder plan, Macbeth is subjected to a storm of insults from Lady Macbeth: Are you afraid/ to be the same in your actions and your worth/ As you are in desire? You would like to have what you value. the ornament of life,/and live cowardly in your own esteem. (I.vii.39-43) His fear of her contempt increases the confusion in his "heat-oppressed brain," causing him to hesitantly accept the conspiracy (II.i.39). (Review MLA format and quotes.) Macbeth, too enraptured by his own fear to maintain rational reasoning, becomes a pawn of his fear-born confusion, leaving his mind no choice but to kill Duncan. If the murder had been caused by ambition, Macbeth would not have been so hesitant in his actions. He would have had a clear goal and could have seen a crown instead of the "aerial dagger" that was "the very painting of [his] fear" (III.iv.62-63). Therefore, Macbeth's regression is stimulated by a fearful frenzy, not by the overly ambitious plot of a rational man..