As a result of her inability to escape the nightmare of immense guilt in sleeping or in wakefulness, Lady Macbeth crosses into the state of eternal sleep, death. In conclusion, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth demonstrates that a guilty conscience is a mind-probing enemy that can strike quietly and become a deadly, overpowering force that can subdue anyone with remorse. Through Lady Macbeth’s character transformation, the effects of a guilty conscience can thoroughly be seen. At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is an ambitious character that can repress her guilt to perform evil to a high extent.
From murder to greed Shakespeare’s Macbeth portrays a story of how one’s flaws can transform into a person’s way of thinking and acting. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth changes from a cold-hearted, greedy, shell of a human body into a guilt ridden woman. Her selfish desires met with ambition and a want for power pushed her into driving Macbeth to kill Duncan. Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth become very guilty because of the crime they have committed.
Throughout the play Lady Macbeth has a great influence upon Macbeth’s decisions, including the one which begins all the bloodshed, daring Macbeth, “Wouldst thou have that which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, and live a coward in thine own esteem[?]” (1.7.41). Lady Macbeth invigorates and changes Macbeth’s attitude from unwilling and ambiguous about murdering Duncan to “settled, and bend up...to this terrible feat” by using pathos, demonstrating that Macbeth chooses evil because of the flawed influence of Lady Macbeth who is leading him down to a tragic alley.
She was trying to make Macbeth the king so she could be the queen. It was her ambitious plan on murdering Duncan, but Macbeth does not want to kill him. After Lady Macbeth reads the letter she says, “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.”
In William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Macbeth, the use of figurative language and the contrast of light and dark in respects to Lady Macbeth’s assassination plot illustrates her defying the set social structure of gender. In the play, Lady Macbeth favors attaining more power, thus prompting her to formulate a plan to kill Duncan, the King, so that her and Macbeth could claim the noble title. The situation correlates to gender as Lady Macbeth epitomizes an unconventional stereotype because devising this type of scheme fits the matrix of males not females. But, regardless of gender, she acknowledges this plan as one of “nature’s mischief” (i.v.48) meaning that it reflects the intrinsic evil within a person, therefore, her words show that
Her final step of inducement consists of turning Macbeth’s own gender against him, “When you durst do it, you were a man” (i.vii.50). This ultimately is the shifting point of the Macbeth’s companionship. Lady Macbeth is so consumed in her own greed that she loses the love of Macbeth throughout the process of enticement. Lady Macbeth is such a strong character that she can maintain a role of innocence while being the centre of control when planning a murder in internal disguise. When Macbeth agrees to committing the murder, he attempts to ask God for forgiveness until he stammers upon his words: “But wherefore could I not pronounce ‘Amen’?
She participates in many actions that suggest so. In the beginning of the play, she states, “Come, you spirits that server the thoughts of mortals: rid me of the natural tenderness of my sex and fill me from head to toe with direst cruelty!”(I, v, 39-42). So that she may commit the murder of Duncan, Lady Macbeth wishes to be rid of her tender side and replace it with cruelty. To murder Duncan, it will require her to be ruthless and that is what she is wishing from the spirits.
When lady Macbeth realizes that Macbeth’s guilt is destroying her plan, She decides to take matters into her own hands to fix what could have been a critical error on Macbeth’s part. When Macbeth comes out with the daggers and cries that he is not willing to go back, lady Macbeth
This again shows how she wishes to be more manly and less motherly to carry out her plan. She is ambitious to murder Duncan and hopes for her body to be filled with more cruelty than ever to act upon her brutal ideas. Unlike most female characters in Shakespeare’s plays, Lady Macbeth desires to be less maternal and affectionate. She hopes to gain more power mentally as she prays for spirits to fill her with sadism and brutality. One last disturbing quote from Lady Macbeth is when she is proposing Duncan’s murder to Macbeth and says, “Will I with wine and wassail so convince/That memory, the warder of the brain,/Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason/A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep/Their drenchèd natures lie as in a death,/What cannot you and I perform
A quote that supports the idea of this paragraph is before Macbeth agrees with the plan Macbeth claims “ when we have marked with blood those sleepy two / of his own chamber, and used their very daggers,/ that they have done’t” (I.vii.75-77). In that quote Macbeth is making sure that after Lady Macbeth smears the blood on the guards, they would not be suspected. The two quotes are related because this takes place when Lady Macbeth is persuading Macbeth to kill the king. After thinking about killing Duncan, Macbeth decides that he should not kill the king right away.
Possibly one of the most influential characters of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth takes the definition of female dominance to an entirely new level with her ability to manipulate, yet love her husband, and her ability to accuse, yet reassure him of his actions. Though Lady Macbeth is not well described anterior to her introduction, it is immediately apparent that she holds her dominance using her cunning skills, fuelled by ambition, which makes her one of the cruellest characters in Macbeth. Her portrayal of cunningness, upon Duncan’s arrival to Macbeth’s castle, is shown when she allows the king to “Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt, / To make their audit at [his] pleasure” (1.6.31–32), in order to give him a false sense of security, when in reality, she wants to ensure that “[her] keen knife see not the wound it makes” (1.5.55) on Duncan. As a result, Lady Macbeth is able to let the king into their castle without hesitation, just like a serpent underneath an innocent flower. While her cunningness is a character trait to fear, it is what fuels it that gives Lady Macbeth her power; ambition.
During the story of The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, there is a major debate over who the real villain Lady Macbeth is or Macbeth himself. “A villain is a cruelly Malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crimes; scoundrel” as defined by the online dictionary. By this definition it describes Macbeth rather than Lady Macbeth since he actually commits crimes. In the beginning when Macbeth visits the three weird sisters they give him three predictions.
The Real Cause of Macbeth's Downfall By: Nick Bagheri As Macbeth’s wife, she plays a major role in his rise and fall from power over Scotland. She could be considered Macbeth's other half because of how much she has an influence on him she uses her tactical position to gain wealth and power while taking very little risk. She takes action whenever she gets an opportunity and does it in a sneaky way through manipulating Macbeth.
Everyone is influenced by the people around them to help guide them through the decisions they make throughout their lives. Lady Macbeth is a wicked character in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, who has a dangerous influence towards Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is accountable for manipulating Macbeth to commit the crimes and she helps release the inner demon in Macbeth by persuading him to become a sinful and dreadful man. The mood of hatred and dismay towards the characters is recognized by the references to blood. This image of blood commences as a demonstration of honor evolves into evil then guilt.
Lady Macbeth is the first character that shows this behavior because she has a ambition for strength, power, and cruelty and to get this she commits a couple deeds that make her corrupt. In lady Macbeths soliloquy in Act 1 Scene 6 lines 39-42 she says “come you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts ,unsex me here,And fill me, from cron to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty.” Her ambition to be more strong and in power makes her talk to evil spirits to make her a man and to fill her with evil. When Macbeth was having second thoughts Lady Macbeth says to Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 7 Lines 49-51 “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.”