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Lady Macbeth's Soliloquy

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In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s Soliloquy is a vital point in the tragedy as it gives the audience a description of one of the crucial characters. Lady Macbeth is serves as an important part of the plot, especially since she is the individual that makes sure that Macbeth goes through with the prophecy, created by the three witches, that he would be crowned King of Scotland, but at the cost of the current king’s life. Shakespeare uses this inner monologue to portray the dangers of excessive ambition, even depicting it as an illness. To accurately create her personality and capture her struggle as a woman in eleventh century Scotland, Shakespeare uses metaphor and symbolism to convey her true nature and reveal what she holds within. …show more content…

This idea can be found when she says, “Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way [to becoming king]” (1.5.2-4). Here she compares her husband to a young baby, who is still feeding on a mother’s milk, which she associates with “human kindness.” When she objects to Macbeth's innocent nature, the passage begins to depict Lady Macbeth as a precarious woman, someone to be feared, suspected, and defiant of the qualities that would make her a lady of her time. At the same time, it prophesizes exactly how much she will soon influence Macbeth's compassionate

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