How Does Lady Macbeth Affect The Play

Lady Macbeth starts to sleepwalk and spill the truth to others. Macbeth asks a doctor to help them. Macbeth asks, “Cure her of that. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart” (5.3.74). Macbeth wants the doctor to get rid of the guilt and stress she has and make her unaware of everything that is currently happening in Scotland. Furthermore, Lady Macbeth eventually commits suicide. After hearing the news Macbeth responds with, “She should have died hereafter; there would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to

Originally, she was more ambitious than Macbeth, the driving force behind King Duncan’s death. For a time, this ambition made her fearless. She treats the matter as if it was a casual, every-day occurrence, scolding the worried Macbeth for “using those thoughts of which should indeed have died with them they think on [and encouraging him to think that] things without all remedy should be without regard. What’s done is done” (3:2:12-14). However, it is not long after Macbeth kills everyone in Macduff’s castle that her guilty conscience takes over her mind. Lady Macbeth begins sleepwalking while reliving every moment from the night of King Duncan’s death. She scrubs the nonexistent blood off of her hands, yelling “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him (5:1:25-28). Unconsciously, Lady Macbeth has become paranoid about being discovered. The longer she sleepwalks, the more paranoid she becomes. Her speech takes on a more rapid pace when she “hears” knocking, urging Macbeth “to bed, to bed. There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come. . . What’s done cannot be undone.—To bed, to bed, to bed! (5:1:45-47). Lady Macbeth’s guilty conscience and paranoia,

Lady Macbeth has the power over her husband to persuade him into doing anything she requests. She manipulates Macbeth with incredible efficiency by overruling all of his thoughts and changing his perspective on the present. Even though the many tasks that need to be completed are difficult to understand why they need to be done, Lady Macbeth will always convince Macbeth to do it. Her husband often tells her that she has a “masculine soul” which is obvious due to her murderous and envious actions. When the time came to kill king Duncan, Macbeth believes that his wife has gone insane and tells her that the crime they were about to commit was a horrible idea. As a result of his questioning, Lady Macbeth says that executing the crime will show his loyalty to her. On the night of the assassination Lady Macbeth watched the guards of the castle become drunk and unaware of what was going on. Lady Macbeth sent her husband into the castle to kill King Duncan. The married couple fled the scene leaving the guards covered in the evidence. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are stained with the blood of their victims and the feeling of guilt in their stomach.

In Shakespeare play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s character progresses in an interesting manner. Lady Macbeth is made to act as an incentive to Macbeth's immoral actions. Even though Macbeth is generally the person to have a final say before killing someone, Lady Macbeth plays the role of his “sidekick”. She mocks her husband if he worries over a sinful deed (which usually she instructs him to do), saying he would be less of a man if he does not follow through with their plan (I. vii. 56-57). She gives Macbeth a short lecture in deceptiveness when they are planning to kill King Duncan (I. vi. 73-78). She also prepared the daggers for Macbeth to kill Duncan in advance (II. ii. 15-16). Although her husband was still having doubts, she was always ready to go in for the kill. She did not think twice about it or feel any remorse. This shows that Lady Macbeth evolved into looking like a humble and quieter person on the exterior, but being an insane woman and criminal due to the events that have affected her.

Macbeth informs his wife Lady Macbeth of the previous events through a letter. She is ecstatic when realising one of the predictions from the witches has already come true. She sets her mind on obtaining the throne for her husband by any means necessary. Lady Macbeth also has a strong desire for power but can only gain this through her husband. She becomes the driving force behind the wicked deed of murdering the King. She summons upon evil spirits to make sure nothing will stand in the way of her plan:

When Macbeth first learns of his prophecy of becoming King of Scotland, he sends a letter to Lady Macbeth, who immediately thinks of the quickest way to get Macbeth onto the throne. She calls on the dark spirits to help her plan the murder of King Duncan and hopes that the darkness can be in her. She wishes so that she may be able to commit the murder with her husband and be free of the guilt afterwards. Lady Macbeth never doubts these murderous thoughts, showing that she is ambitious and power-hungry. She is also characterized as clever when she persuades Macbeth into committing the murder when he is unsure of doing the deed. Her strong-willed mind is also shown when she takes the daggers from Macbeth, who is too shaken up by what he had done, and she puts them back in Duncan’s chambers. After the murder, Lady Macbeth seems the least guilty of the two, and she can feel as if nothing has happened. Her character starts to change, however, when she feels unhappy in her position as queen. She starts to feel the regrets of killing King Duncan, and she begins to doubt herself. Lady Macbeth soon feels so guilty that she sleepwalks, talking in her sleep about her and her husband’s horrible deeds. This takes away from her powerful characterization in the beginning. Lady Macbeth goes from being a ruthless, dark woman to a guilt-burdened sleepwalker with little

     Lady Macbeth progresses throughout the play from a seemingly savage and heartless creature to a very delicate and fragile woman. In the beginning of the play, she is very ambitious and hungry for power. She pushes Macbeth to kill Duncan in order to fulfill the witches’ prophecy. In Act I, Scene 6, she asks the gods to make her emotionally strong like a man in order to help her husband go through with the murder plot. She says, “Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty!” Also, she does everything in her power to convince Macbeth that he would be wrong not to kill Duncan. In Act I,

However once they accomplish the deed, the torment that the guilt brings is too much for Macbeth but he gets used to the evil of killing people meanwhile the opposite happens to Lady Macbeth who becomes paranoid about killing Duncan. Shakespeare presents the play in such a way that the audience sees how more and more their relationship changes dramatically as a result of how they each handle their emotions following the murder of King Duncan. Although Macbeth was weak at first, it was the strong Lady Macbeth who helped him through the first murder, but in sacrifice to controlling Macbeth and his conscience, she lost control of her own and consequently became insane and committed suicide. Lady Macbeth repeatedly convinced her husband by questioning his manhood “When you durst do it, then you were a man, / And, to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man” (Shakespeare 1.7.54-56). She is a strong, powerful character in comparison to her easily influenced husband, until towards the end of the play where he seems to take on her role.

While Macbeth is hesitant before and during the process of murdering Duncan, Lady Macbeth remains persistent and encourages Macbeth to “only look up clear. To alter favour ever is to fear.” (1.5.78-79). She then proceeds to say, “Leave all the rest to me.” (1.5.80). Before Lady Macbeth is aware of Macbeth’s prophecy, she is considered a pure, honest and a genuine woman. But after Macbeth shares his future, Lady Macbeth develops a greedy aspiration for being crowned Queen. In order for her dream to come true, Lady Macbeth forces her husband to carry out King Duncan’s murder by saying, hypothetically if she had made a promise with Macbeth, even if it was to kill her own child by “dash(ing) the brains out…” (1.7.62-64), she would not withdraw her promise. It is evident at this point the extreme measures Lady Macbeth is willing to pursue in order to fulfill her own selfish ambition. Lady Macbeth’s honest and pure personality transforms her into a selfish, highly driven and manipulative woman. Like Macbeth, Lady Macbeth struggles to deal with the guilt she experiences as a result of her actions, yet she is unable to disguise her guilt with selfish ambition. Her mental stability begins to diminish, which is particularly evident in Act 5. Her guilt becomes noticeable when she begins sleepwalking and sleep talking about

Within the first few scenes, Lady Macbeth already shows warnings of mental instability. After Macbeth tells her of the prophecy, she immediately starts planning on how to make it reality, and then creates the plot on how to kill Duncan. Her ambition far exceeds that of which Macbeth shows. Its here that Lady Macbeth starts her path to insanity as she starts having delusions and even calling out to spirits. “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe topful of direst cruelty!” (V.i.37-40).

Lady Macbeth essentially provides an insight of what society is telling Macbeth he should be, and pushes him into doing things for not only his benefit, but her. Macbeth allows for his wife to use him and obtain power. Throughout this, Macbeth as a character harderns, and he becomes cold even though his past haunts him. When his wife eventually dies he shows no

Lady Macbeth Character Change Lady Macbeth’s character has many changes over the course of the play Macbeth. She goes from a confident, strong, determined woman to an unstable and vulnerable figure. At first, she provokes violence, then she tries to save Macbeth, her husband, and protect him, but eventually, she just loses herself in the midst of a plot of her own making. At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is introduced as ruthless and as someone who would do anything to make her husband king. She can be cruel and immoral if it leads to getting her way.

As the strong hold in the relationship, Lady Macbeth shows remarkable strength up to the point of Duncan's murder. She is the comforter of Macbeth immediately after he commits the crime. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth later lose the ability to sleep because if they do, they have terrifying dreams but she still shows more strength during the day than her husband. To help keep Macbeth from feeling guilty and to help keep him calm in the night, she once again questions his manhood. That is until she cracks and her conscience becomes too much for her to handle. She was the one who had more

In spite of the fact that in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth fills in as the primary impact in Macbeth's life. He believes her with all that he has . She is, after all, his "dearest partner of greatness." (I, v, 13). The connection amongst Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is not quite the same as others of Shakespeare's time.

When she learns of the predictions of the witches, she immediately goes to work on figuring out how to get her husband into the throne of power. She fears that her husband is too kind and that “impedes thee from the golden round” (1.5.31). She manipulates her power over and tells him that he would not be a man if he did not kill Duncan, "When you durst do it, then you were a man;/and, to be more than what you were, you would/ be so much more the man" (1.7.56-58). Using her power over her husband, Lady Macbeth convinces him to kill King Duncan. However as Macbeth becomes power, and becomes more paranoid he begins to be the mastermind of his fate, as Lady Macbeth had once been. Macbeth plans to kill Banquo and Fleance, without communicating with Lady Macbeth about his plans; when he tells her of his plans, she warns him no to, where he responds she should “be innocent of the knowledge” (3.3.51). Macbeth’s plans were not successful, and Fleance escaped, which causes his “fit again. else been perfect.” (3.4.23) When Lady Macbeth was dominant, Macbeth experiences hallucinations, for instance the floating “dagger of the mind.” However, as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relationship shifts, Lady Macbeth is now experiencing hallucinations of the “damn’d spot,” the blood, which shows her guilt for the feeling of committing murder. Her guilt was so great, that while she was sleep walking, she began to re-enact the