How Does Lady Macbeth Change Throughout The Play

Introduction

The character of Lady Macbeth, in the play “Macbeth” by William Shakeaspeare, undergoes a significant transformation throughout the course of the story. At the beginning of Macbeth, she is determined and fearless to kill King Duncan. This is when she realizes how her natural womanhood has a possibility of ruining her courage for murder. Following Lady Macbeth’s change in the play, she is ambitious of power and kingship, therefore uses persuasive skills. Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to agree to killing King Duncan. To this point, Lady Macbeth has been cold blooded and violent in her speech, however when her time is to try to kill the King, she completely loses her confidence. As a result of this, she is unable to kill him due to the resemblance of Duncan to her father. Coming to the end of the play, Lady Macbeth has gone insane and is unable to sleep. She has a psychological illness that causes her to sleepwalk and remember the horrible events of Duncan,

This appears in Act 5 Scene 1, “What, will these hands ne’er be clean? -- No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that; you mar all with this starting”. Lady Macbeth questions if her hands will ever be clean from all the violence and bloody deeds she has taken apart in, however she has a realization that they will never be. She is forced to live with it for the rest of her life. What’s more is that Lady Macbeth blamed her husband for ruining everything by being so jittery, even though she is the one to blame for proposing the idea of kingship and potential power. Sooner or later, Lady Macbeth realizes that, “come, come, come, come, give me your hand; what’s done cannot be undone”. This indicates that Lady Macbeth has lost all her purpose, and is slowly giving up on her determination to become the queen she wanted in the