Macbeth Quote Analysis

The First Murderer adds his own justification, explaining that he has suffered so many disasters and struggles with fortune that he is ready to gamble his life on any chance to improve or end it.

The personification of fortune as something that 'tugg'd' him—a verb evoking a relentless physical dragging—makes his life sound like a wrestling match he is losing. His willingness to 'set my life on any chance' adopts the language of gambling, framing murder as simply another bet in a series of desperate risks. This collapse of moral distinction into mere probability ('to mend it or be rid on't') shows how privation can erode ethical categories, making survival and damnation appear as equivalent outcomes.

Use this to argue that the play links political tyranny to economic desperation—this murderer's fatalistic language shows how poverty creates a population willing to commit violence because they feel they have nothing left to lose.