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Lady Macbeth Change Throughout The Play Essay

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Shakespeare’s Macbeth is one of his famous tragedies. Over the course of the play, many terrible deaths occur primarily caused by the ruthlessness of Macbeth’s wife, Lady Macbeth, and their burning desire to become king and queen of Scotland. Lady Macbeth begins as one of the most powerful and least humane female characters in English literature. However, she experiences a major change in moral character throughout the play. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s moral character changes from ruthless, pitiless, vicious, wicked, villainous and murderous at the beginning of the play to guilt-ridden, concerned, distressed, unsettled and extremely anxious at the time of her death. There are many events that happen and stages she goes through to complete such a drastic change. At the beginning of the play, before any of the great crimes occur she is extremely pitiless, willing to …show more content…

She is so wicked that she will do anything to gain power. First of all, after being informed of Macbeth’s prophecy to become king, she says to herself, “fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full/ Of direst cruelty!... Come thick night,/ And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell” (I: 5: 45-46, 54-55). She is so brutal at this point of the play that she calls on demons to remove all her womanly qualities so that nothing can stop her from accomplishing her goals. Secondly, at the beginning of the play she is very cruel while convincing her husband to commit murder with her. While convincing Macbeth, she says to him, “I would, while it was smiling in my face/ Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums/ And dash’d the brains out” (I: 7: 61-63). She is willing to kill her own child in order to go through with the murder of Duncan. In her opening scenes, Lady Macbeth has a merciless, manipulative, murderous mind-set with low moral standards, but has yet to commit any

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