Lady Macbeth Dynamic Character

During Shakespeare’s time period, women were mostly considered babymakers and housekeepers. Women were thought to be ignorant and were only around to look pretty. Lady Macbeth, however, reversed these stereotypes becoming a strong and key character in Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is a very interestingly dynamic character who ruthlessly becomes queen of Scotland though her ambition and manipulation.

Lady Macbeth is first introduced as an ambitious woman when she is reading Macbeth’s letter in act 1.5. After reading the prophecy, she is filled with a burning ambition to become queen. She knows that she will have to kill the king in order to do this, and she wishes that she could do it herself. Because she is a woman, she believes she is incapable of doing such a thing. She says, “Come, you spirits That

This makes her a very interesting and dynamic character to watch throughout the story. She starts going truly mad after the banquet in act 3.4 and everything becomes too much for her. She starts sleepwalking which alerts Macbeth so he has a doctor try and help her. In her sleep, she discloses all of her secrets to the doctor and the gentlewoman who do not know what to do with such information. While asleep, Lady Macbeth said, “yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (Shakespeare 5.1.34). She is unable to get the “blood off her hands” and goes crazy trying to deal with the burden of the murder. She goes so crazy that she eventually kills herself to end her sorrow.

Lady Macbeth is a pivotal character in Macbeth. She is the one who moves the story along through Duncan's murder and Macbeth’s downfall. She was there through it all like the devil on Macbeth’s shoulder whispering bad things into his ears. Without Lady Macbeth’s deceitful ways, Macbeth may not have ever killed Duncan and would have been just fine as the Thane of