Macbeth Secondary Character Analysis

She is the strong influence that brainwashed Macbeth to murder his lord, his master, King Duncan, with his own bare hands. The audience is led to think that Lady Macbeth is the main culprit as she thinks up all her grand plans and devious schemes. She is, moreover, a sly person, the person behind the scenes and her husband is easily manipulated and is pushed around by her. Just prior to all of this happening, Lady Macbeth was a very loving wife, and she wanted all the best for her husband. However, after Macbeth send the letter containing the witches prophecies, she turns into a monster who is just as ambitious as her husband and wants to do whatever it takes to “help” him get Duncan out of his way. Although, she take it too far, she adds pressure on Macbeth to commit a crime he is unsure of doing. She even goes to the point of calling him a coward, mocking his bravery and masculinity. Lady Macbeth even says in one of her soliloquies that she wants to be released of all her femininity, morals and values so that she can agree and help Macbeth with the deed. It is certain the Lady Macbeth’s ambition is controlling her actions and

Lady Macbeth is a two-faced megalomaniac who is responsible for the murder of King Duncan in the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare. After Macbeth tells her about their probable future of royalty foretold by a group of old witches, she immediately creates a plan to kill the king of Scotland in order to gain control of the throne. She, however, puts this murderous crime upon the shoulders of her husband Macbeth to do the dirty work. In the play, one can see how Lady Macbeth is more responsible for the murder of King Duncan because of her abilities to easily manipulate people into doing what she wants.

      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.

Lady Macbeth had a very powerful hold over Macbeth. Just by questioning his valor she could shift Macbeth’s whole thought process and second-guessing of the murder of Duncan (Booth, 24), and he allows it because he cannot bear to disappoint her. His love for her and need for her approval is what ultimately leads him to commit each and every one of his crimes. She is the center of his world and if she does not see a problem in the murders than why should he. This is naïve ignorance caused by a blindness that is induced by love, and that is both heart breaking and tragic.

In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the true villain of the play as she is evil, ambitious and eventually insane. Lady Macbeth masterminded the idea to kill King Duncan and planted the vision into Macbeths mind, she convinced Macbeth to commit such a crime, and her love for her husband was eventually overruled by her determination and lust for power. Throughout the play she starts to show her true colours and the destructive force of her ambition, which inevitably results in nothing but disaster.

Macbeth’s character has developed significantly up to the second act. We are first introduced to Macbeth character in a way that we view him as powerful and Nobel. We get this idea from the quote “oh valiant cousin, worthy gentleman” which is what he is described as by Duncan, who at the time is the king. From this quote Macbeth is portrayed as a loyal and heroic figure who has done much for many, however as we know this was not a smart move for Duncan to make as it makes him come across and weak and seems like Duncan should be giving Macbeth a higher title, which is what the witches had told him before. In addition, this idea of the king complementing Macbeth about all the good that he has done seems to trigger the belief that Macbeth has the ability to be king, even in the eyes of Duncan who is so ecstatic what he has done for the county.

In the play “Macbeth” the author furthers the ideas of ambition, manhood and violence throughout the play using a gender lens, mainly for masculinity in men. In the play “Macbeth” ambition plays a big role in the man characters life; Macbeth. In Act 1 scene 3, lines 125-129, “And oftentimes, to win us to our harm; The instruments of darkness tell us truth.” (Shakespeare 1.3.125-129). This quote stated by Banquo foreshadows Macbeth further into the play. Macbeth ends up killing King Duncan because he wants to be in power over the kingdom. When Banquo questions Macbeth about the killing of King Duncan, Macbeth’s ambition to kill Banquo skyrocketed. Macbeth didn’t want anybody to think or know that he ended up killing King Duncan for power. This started a cycle of death for Macbeth’s ambition to kill to stay in power. This example of ambition from “Macbeth” has a very similar motif from the movie called “The Mask You Live In”. In the movie, George Orwell states, “He wears a mask and his face grows to fit it.” The idea of the mask he wear fits his face helps us further the reason for men’s ambitions. Men’s ambitions are driven by power and dominance over people and prized possessions. For men to be able to gain power, they need to prove how masculine they are to society. In doing so they are dehumanizing their biological thoughts and feelings and turning them into artificial ones in order to be seen more powerful or dominate to the public.

Whilst the character of Macbeth is initially portrayed as a noble kinsman, his ambition and motivation, directly influenced by the witches and Lady Macbeth, ultimately transforms him into a corrupt and ruthless tyrant. William Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy “Macbeth” clearly depicts this notion of change, illustrated through Shakespeare's utilisation of literary techniques. The tragic downfall of Macbeth is mainly attributed to Macbeth’s own greed and hubris.

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

Throughout the book, as Macbeth continues to progress in power, it seems as though his morals fade away while dark and destructive ideas spread through him quickly. While Macbeth contemplates his first evil deed of killing Duncan, he often talk’s himself into doing it, or gets outside persuasion to gain the courage that he is lacking. After talking to Lady Macbeth about how he has to murder Duncan, he exclaims, “I am settled and bend up / Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. / Away and mock the time with the fairest show. / False face must hide what the false heart doth / know” (1.7.92-96). Later in the novel we learn that Macbeth thinks that Banquo has become a threat to his power. Macbeth then takes this problem into his own hands and assigns murderers to kill Banquo. Macbeth then says, “So is he mine; and in such bloody distance / That every minute of his being thrusts/ Against my nearest of life. And though I could / With barefaced power sweep him from my sight/ And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not, / For certain friends that are both his and mine, / Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall who I myself struck down. And thence it is, that I to your assistance do make love, masking the business from the common eye for sundry weighty reasons” (3.1.132-142). Macbeth is saying that if he absolutely has to do this terrible deed he will, it doesn’t mean he wants to, but he is going to do it anyways. Macbeth uses the motif of appearance versus reality when he

Lady Macbeth plays the role that convinces Macbeth to carry out murder and pushes his blind ambition to become king for her own self want of being queen and gain power in the hierarchy. “We fail!, But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we'll not fail....”, this supports this idea of her controlling the situation and making Macbeth do things that he did not want to do, the evil act she forced upon macbeth will allow her to step up (Document B).

Macbeth is aware that his plan is wrong, but he seems to be persuaded by Lady Macbeth and his own ambition. She changes his perception when she tries to tempt Macbeth into killing Duncan by explaining “QUOTE OF PERSUASION” (). Without Lady Macbeth pushing Macbeth to commit the murder, we do not know how Macbeth would carry on. Shakespeare creates Lady Macbeth as a way to manipulate Macbeth in order to create a feeling of sympathy within the audience. Shakespeare wants us to sympathize with Macbeth as a character because Shakespeare purposely builds him as someone who is not a villain, but is pressured into carrying out the evil plan.

Lady Macbeth is ambitious just like her husband. She wants to be queen, which brings power and wealth. They 're certainly wealthy already, but the crown brings new lands and castles which shows that Lady Macbeth is very power-hungry. She also wants what men have, though she can 't be king, since she 's female, so Macbeth becoming king is the next best thing. After hearing about this opportunity Lady Macbeth jumped all over it and the obvious plan to her was to murder King Duncan.

In one of William Shakespeare’s most popular and enriching plays, the main character is driven to murder a king so that he can have his throne. The title of the play, as well as the name of this leading character, is Macbeth. In the beginning of the first act, Macbeth is shown and seen as a gallant hero and a courageous general, just returning from battle with another fearless leader, Banquo. Three witches ominously predict the futures of the men, leading Macbeth to write to his wife, explaining the situation. His love then plots an assassination of King Duncan, a man of fairness and nobility, so that the prophecies of the witches will continue to come true, meaning that Macbeth will be the new king. There are many factors that lead Macbeth

To begin, Lady Macbeth is a key character in representing the theme of greed and corruption for she is corruptly ambitious which ultimately leads to her death. At the outset, when Lady Macbeth learns about Macbeth’s opportunity to fulfill the prophecy of him becoming King she fears that he lacks ambition and is too full of the milk of human kindness. Therefore, she manipulates her husband into killing Duncan for she desperately desires to be queen. She asks him, “...Wouldst thou have that /Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, /And live a coward in thine own esteem” (Shakespeare 1. 7. 41-43) questioning his manhood and courage. In doing so, it motivates him to prove his masculinity and convinces him to commit the deed. Thus demonstrating how she is ambitious and that she believes that the end justifies the means. In other words, Lady Macbeth is conscious of what she wants and willing to go to any extent in order to obtain it.