The Downfall of Lady Macbeth

A deadly combination of ambition and guilt poisons both Macbeth and his wife and leads to their deaths in the end. Ruined by her desire for power, Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness is more vivid and guilt seems to affect her more than her husband, even though he is responsible for more crimes. Her request to the spirits to “unsex [her] here,/ And fill [her], from the crown to the toe, top-full/ Of direst cruelty!” is contrasted as the more guilty she feels, the more weak and sensitive she become, a polar opposite of her usual masculine and bold self (1.5.44-46). As a result, she is unable to cope with the guilt and meets her ultimate demise by taking her life. This has an immediate effect on Macbeth: the almost always apparent tension of ambition and guilt disappears. He does not seem interested in living and is ready to face death in a manner more relatable to his former self rather than the murderer he has become. Moreover, Macbeth’s final remark is “Arm, arm, and out!”,

In the play The Tragedy of Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth was an important character. She was the wife of the King of Scotland. Lady Macbeth had first come off as a forceful character but as time passed, her weaknesses were shown.

Although Macbeth commits the murder, Lady Macbeth shows that she has just as many dark and corrupt thoughts as him. The one who comes up with the murder plan is Lady Macbeth, directly after she learns about the prophecy. After Macbeth informs her of the king’s overnight stay, Lady Macbeth’s first words are “O, never/ Shall sun that morrow see!” (1. 5. 67-68) as her plan to kill the king is already being put into motion. If Lady Macbeth had not made the plans Macbeth may not have gone through with the murder. Lady macbeth becomes a driving, manipulative force to Macbeth. She justifies why killing Duncan is good and shames him into committing horrible deeds. When Macbeth tries to refuse she says “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. 54-56), challenging his masculinity. In the end, Lady Macbeth isn't the only one who’s mind becomes corrupted, she drags Macbeth down with her. Finally, Lady Macbeth pretends that the guilt doesn’t really bother her, she simply tells her husband that he is weak. She tries hide her corruption through lies and by putting Macbeth down, but in the end she falters, realises her guilt and drives herself insane.

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

Lady Macbeth becomes incensed at her husband “Naught’s had, all’s spent,/ Where our desire is got without content./ ‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy/ Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy” (III.ii.4-7) that all will turn to nothing if Macbeth starts to feel guilty about killing. She tries to teach him how to become unemotional and fearless. All of these commands and actions cause Macbeth to have a war inside of him, leading him to his downfall.

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.

Not feeling any remorse, she is able to skillfully let go of guilt and skillfully get rid of evidence. As Macbeth comes back to her after the deed is complete he is very shaken up and extremely paranoid that someone saw him with the bloody daggers. Lady Macbeth tells him, “These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so it will make us mad” (2.2.34). By saying this she believes that you shouldn’t feel guilty about doing evil, you should just get it done and move on because thinking about it will only drive you crazy. Also she thinks when commiting violent acts such as murder make sure to get rid of any evidence that will lead people to believe you are a suspect. Frustrated and upset that her husband came home bathed in blood and the daggers in his hand she states, “Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers.”(2.2.52-53). She is extremely disappointed in Macbeth for being so careless and cannot believe that he did not go through the well thought out plan smoothly. In her eyes he is still a coward and does not know how to behave calmy when feeling guilty.

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

Everyone wants to know the secret to life. There isn't just one lesson to learn to achieve success or failure. In fact, there are so many ways that people fail in life and many authors have written stories such as Macbeth, by Shakespeare, to understand how people fail. In the story of Macbeth, it was shown that Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, were selfish, wanted everything for themselves and were willing to do anything to get it. However, the most unsuccessful character in this story was Lady Macbeth. An examination of Lady Macbeth’s character suggests that people fail because of emotion, lack of conviction, and failure to acknowledge their mistakes.

Although Lady Macbeth appears wicked and evil-hearted, Shakespeare’s use of blood imagery reveals her humanity. At the beginning of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth emerges as the mastermind behind the murder of King Duncan. Macbeth dabbles with the idea of murder in order to secure the title of king, but then vacillates and decides against it. Lady Macbeth is the one who ultimately changes her husband’s mind, encouraging and convincing him to commit the crime. In her conversations with Macbeth, she acts defiant and strong. When she is alone, however, Shakespeare paints her in a different light. After the messenger notifies her that King Duncan and Macbeth are fast approaching, she is seen praying to evil spirits, asking them to fill her with cruelty and “make thick (her) blood.” (Shakespeare I.5.42) By asking the spirits for help to fulfill the cold-blooded role she wants to play, Shakespeare implies that Lady Macbeth has a conscience. She would not be praying for cold-bloodedness if she was sure she could commit the

All of her inner thoughts are disclosed when she sleepwalks in the fifth act exposing the radical difference between how she presented herself to Macbeth and the nobles and how she really feels about the murders she has had a hand in. In this play she is only strives to kill one man, Duncan but the blood Macbeth sheds throughout the play affects his wife as much as him. In her very first appearance, she wishes to a higher power to give her cruelty to kill her beloved king in order to become queen and Macbeth king as the witches had prophesied , she wished that, “that no compunctious visitings of nature/Shake my fell purpose.”(I.v.52-53) she thinks her nature is too kind to go through on these horrible deeds so she merely as though she is unaffected to get her husband to go through with the murders. She continues to be the steady when he falters into madness after what he has done, in murdering his king and best friend. We don’t see till the end that she too is just as affected but the tragedy they have caused as him. She cannot show this however and must be the masculine example of strength and stability to her husband and the kingdom. After Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo she reminds him “My worth lord,/ Your noble friends do lack you”(III.iv.100-101) she wants to remind her husband no matter how real or devastating what he just saw was he needs to remember he is a king hosting nobles and his responsibility is greater than his

the sin which has stained her hands. Macbeth, a virtuous man, allows the stain of dark desires to consume, whilst Lady Macbeth, incapable of hiding within the darkness, bears the weight of

That night Macbeth ends up killing Duncan. Just before the murder Macbeth is walking down the hall when he has a vision of a dagger with a bloody tip, which is pointed for Duncan’s room. He thinks to himself, “Art tho not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation” (II.1.36-38). During the murder Macbeth makes a mistake that angers Lady Macbeth. He has forgotten to leave the daggers with Duncan’s guards, and she must now go and return them. Initially Macbeth is upset over the murder, but Lady Macbeth tells him it is as easy to forget about as washing the blood away with water. This first murder shows the strong character of Lady Macbeth and the influence she has over her husband.

Many of people have heard the tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare. The story revolves on a sequence of misfortunate events that take place when Macbeth makes immoral decisions to be king. In the play, Shakespeare shows how power can cause corruption in a human’s brain. Macbeth himself was not a very confident person, though he had a kind soul to begin with, he was easily influenced and gullible. Through the prophecies of the evil beings, an insignificant seed was planted in Macbeth. That spark of wealth and fortune caused the tyrant within him to awake. Which eventually lead to his fatal death. His ambition lead him to murder, go insane and become very superstitious.

In William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s character develops greatly throughout the play. In the opening of the play she is illustrated as a dominant, devious woman who does not have to think second about conspiring to execute the King of Scotland. Nonetheless after the dirty deed is completed, Lady Macbeth breaks down at the end of the play. She endures a nervous breakdown and commits suicide, which displays how she went from a powerful woman to a remorseful maniac.