Why macduff flee

Lady Macduff accuses her husband of not loving his family enough and she says she and her children are abandoned. Macduff has fled for a higher purpose though. He is trying to save his country from a murderous tyrant. How does Lady Macduff react to the news that her husband has gone to England? The conversation between Lady Macduff and her son is supposed to be comic relief it can occur just before a tense scene.

The messenger repeatedly tells Lady Macduff he is humble, but honorable, meaning she should trust him. He basically tells her that he is below her. He also leaves just in time; the the murderers arrive right after he exits. She tells her son it is left up to the mother to protect her young now, and that his father is dead. The refusal, of course, makes for an untenable situation and Macduff understandably flees Scotland leaving his wife and children. Lady Macduff perhaps half believes her husband to be a traitor.

In her distress and confusion, in her tenderness for her son, in her fierce loyalty to her husband Lady Macduff symbolises the good and innocent people who are mindlessly slaughtered by the tyrant Macbeth. The character of Lady Macduff foils Lady Macbeth in her lack ambition, her genuine love of family life and her devotion to her husband. Lady Macbeth is purportedly a loving wife to her husband.

It is also said that they are complimentary, in that Macbeth has ideas and Lady Macbeth forces him into action. Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff are similar in that they expect their husbands be protect and rule their families. When Macbeth is considering whether or not to kill Duncan, Lady Macbeth tells him that he would be more the man if he were to go after his ambitions.

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A porter stumbles through the hallway to answer the knocks and make fun of whoever is on the other side of the door. He compares himself to a person at the gates of hell and asks who they are. Macduff complains about the response to his knock from the porter. The porter says that he was up late carousing and joking about the effects of alcohol, which he says causes red noses, sleepiness, and urination. He says drink makes one to be lustful but takes away the ability to have sex.

Macduff asked if the king was awake, saying that Duncan asked to see him early that morning. Macbeth said that Duncan is still asleep.

He is willing to take Macduff to the king. Macduff ran from the room, shouting that the king had been murdered. Lady Macbeth appeared and expressed her horror that a deed could be done under her roof. As the other nobles and their servants arrive, general chaos ensues. Malcolm and Donalbain are on the scene as the two men emerge from the bedroom.

While we cannot as yet understand the full significance of Macduff as one of the knockers at the gate, we do recognise early in the play a basic antagonism between him and Macbeth, an antagonism that begins earlier than that of any other character in the play. Whether Macduff has attempted to encourage in others his own distrust of Macbeth, or whether he merely voiced his distrust, or whether he did neither of these, we do not know.

We do know that his distrust of Macbeth was great enough for him to refuse a command to appear before Macbeth. The refusal, of course, makes for an untenable situation and Macduff understandably flees Scotland leaving his wife and children. Lady Macduff perhaps half believes her husband to be a traitor. A man who is not a traitor, she says, would not leave his family to a tyrant from whom he himself is running away. But in her distress and confusion Lady Macduff misses the intention of her husband's action.

He has left Scotland without word to his family because he did not wish the family to be implicated. Macduff regarded Macbeth as a tyrant but not a mindless murderer of those who were completely innocent.