Lady Macbeth is a deep and complicated character. She has many inner demons that she never comes to terms with, which inevitably lead to her suicide. She is seen as an evil, conniving woman but she goes so much deeper than that. She has high hopes for herself and uses her husband and his love for her to obtain them. All of the things she wished eventually lead to tragedy though. When Lady Macbeth is first introduced she is reading a letter from her husband, Macbeth. He is telling her about his meeting with the three witches and their three prophecies. The one she is most concerned with is the prophecy that Macbeth will become king. She decides that they must kill King Duncan. She then asks for the strength to commit the murder. “Of …show more content…
Lady Macbeth was supposed to commit the murder of Duncan but she realizes she cannot do it. She says, “Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t.” (Act 2 Scene 2 Lines 12-13) Here she shows her first sign of weakness. She also shows that she is not as malicious and cold as she is portrayed earlier in the play. Macbeth ends up committing the murder. He is very traumatized by what he is done. Lady Macbeth urges him to calm down. She knows that they must not think of what they have done or it will eventually drive them mad. During the time that Macbeth is extremely upset he realizes that he forgot to leave the dagger by the guards. Lady Macbeth takes the daggers and lays them beside the guards. She comes back and shows Macbeth her bloody hands and makes a comment about him being a coward. When Macduff discover the king’s death in the morning he tries to hide it from Lady Macbeth. He does not want to startle her with such terrible information. He ends up letting it slip though when he informs Banquo in front of her. She makes a suspicious comment. She says, “Woe, alas. What, in our house?” (Act 2 Scene 3 Lines 82-83), though this comment does not warrant suspicion from no one else. She then faints to keep her lady like form. Lady Macbeth keeps trying to keep Macbeth is check. She is now queen and she wants to keep it that way. She does not want his weaknesses to ruin things for her. She is worried his
Lady Macbeth has seen Macbeth's weakness, his lack of manliness. She is too afraid to commit the murder of Duncan, and must assure Macbeth that it is his duty. She accomplished this goal by making fun of him and arousing his jealousy instincts.
In Shakespeare’s classic tragedy of Macbeth the main character Macbeth is driven from his status as a well respected warrior and lord of not one, but two Scottish regions to a dishonest, unloyal murderer. Macbeth gets caught in a web of lies and vile acts of murder in which he brings about his own demise. His criminal actions lead up to his tragic ending of life. ‘ They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But bearlike I must fight the course.’ His great ambition and gullibility of the witches predictions are two of the biggest factors of his downfall;however, Lady Macbeth was probably the biggest influence in the whole tragedy.
Macbeth is confused as he is arguing with himself on what he should do. He states reasons not to kill Duncan, because Macbeth is his noble kinsmen and the act would bring dishonor. However, he also states reason why he should kill him, because Macbeth will then become king and fulfill the witches ' fortune. Lady Macbeth, who appears in the beginning as the driving force for the murder of King Duncan, also develops internal conflict. At first, Lady Macbeth seems to be a woman of extreme confidence and will. But, as situations become more and more unstable in the play, guilt develops inside her. For instance, she exclaims; "Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. / Look not so pale. I tell you again, Banquo 's / Burried; he cannot come out on 's grave" (Shakespeare V, ii, 65-67). Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and frets about her evil wrongdoings because she is extremely guilty of her influence on Macbeth to commit the murder. Lady Macbeth reacts emotionally and dwells on her actions as guilt eats at her soul.
Lady Macbeth’s strength of will persists through the murder of King Duncan as it is she who tries to calm Macbeth after committing the crime by declaring confidently that, “a little water clears us of this deed,” (2.2.67). Afterward, however, Lady Macbeth’s strong and ambitious character begins to deteriorate into madness. Her first sign of weakness occurred when she confessed that she could not have killed the king, revealing a natural woman’s feelings, “had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t” (2.2.13-14). Just as ambition has affected her before more so then Macbeth before the crime, the guilt plagues her now more effectively afterward as she desperately tried to wash away the invisible blood from her sin, “Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfume of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,” (5.1.48-49). Lady Macbeth’s
People will say that she is just a good wife trying to go after happiness and joy with her husband. All she wanted was power and for him to be king. That did not work out well. Everything just turned against them. But, here is the weakness; Lady Macbeth and Macbeth both fell apart. After they did all that was wrong, they both felt guilt and did not stop thinking about it. Macbeth started having bad dreams and imagining things. Lady Macbeth started sleep walking and fell apart until she finally decided to take her own life. It did not turn out well for both of them. One can say she was trying to help and do well for her and her husband but that is not
Later on the novel another crime occurs in order to keep Macbeth’s throne safe. Banquo and Fleance are two of the next victims in Macbeth’s hit list. He had murderers to execute his job. The three murderers come back with the news that only Banquo was dead and that Fleance had escaped. Macbeth receives the news during a dinner that was held on the castle, where all members of the royalty were present except Macduff, Banquo, and Fleance. But Banquo was only absent for those who couldn’t see, Macbeth was having illusions with Banquo
The audience’s initial perception of Lady Macbeth is of a confident and evil women. In her first scene she is reading a letter from her husband telling her about the witches predictions. Upon reading the letter she instantly decides to
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 the play, “Macbeth”, the character that stands out the most is Lady Macbeth. Her role in this story is significant, she is an evil, ruthless, and ambitious person. She is responsible for the murders that her husband commits because she was bloodthirsty for the crown. In fact, she then becomes more eager to get the crown than Macbeth himself and soon realizes that once you commit one violent act, there is almost no way of ever turning back. An analysis of Lady Macbeth reveals that she is a powerful character who adds complexity and depth to a play about murder, madness, and revenge.
Lady Macbeth is a complex and intriguing character in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. She is a difficult character to embody as her personality seems split between two sides, one that is pure evil, sly and conniving in contrast to her softer, vulnerable, weak and feminine side. In the play we see her in these two main ways. The reader may feel a certain animosity towards Lady Macbeth throughout the first few acts as her personality appears more and more distasteful, in spite of this towards the end she has a serious breakdown over the guilt that torments her, even in her sleep, regarding her hand in Duncan’s untimely death.
Throughout the play of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth has many different emotions. She is very demanding and in control of what she wants people to do. She is very confident in her plans that they will get done. But also, there are times when she may feel weak or scared to do something. She forces Macbeth to go along with the plan to kill Duncan so he can be King and she will be Queen. Lady Macbeth is sure that they will not get caught witheir plans and they will be safe. She is nervous though when it is time to kill Duncan because he looks like her father. Lady Macbeth shows lots of emotions during the play.
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,
Lady Macbeth from “Macbeth” was a very powerful and influential character in the play. However, her traits are portrayed as bitter making her seem as an undesirable figure. Throughout the book she is interpreted as controlling, demanding, power seeking, and corrupt, but it will later come back and cause conflict. In the book she says, “ Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures… For it must seem their guilt” (Shakespeare 59). At this point in the book, Lady Macbeth is showing how controlling she is by taking the matters into
Lady Macbeth is more power hungry and ambitious then Macbeth is. She, through ambition she gives the finial push to Macbeth to kill Duncan the king of Scotland. Her power however, is not driven by the sisters, hers is greed. She wants to be Queen, she wants the power of being Queen. Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeths ambition is tragic flaw. Her ambition drives her to her to go crazy which ultimately drives her to her death. There is an instance where she is sleep walking, eyes open. She goes to her vanity and sits down, she looks at her hands a sees blood. Then she sticks her hand in the water bowl and attempts to wash them. When she pulls them back out the blood did not wash away. Only she can see the blood her maid and doctor see this happening and they just think that she is going crazy. This is only the beginning of her insaneness. Just before her death she vilely reads a letter that Macbeth sent to her, telling her that he was to be King some how. It is her guilt that kills her.
Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare’s most powerful and emotionally intense plays. Macbeth, once known for his courage and bravery is transformed into a ruthless tyrant. His wife, Lady Macbeth, once known for her strength and great ambition is soon engulfed by guilt and sensitivity greatly weakens her. As the tragic hero Macbeth is overcome by tensions in his criminal act and the reactions by his conscience (Nix).