How Is Lady Macbeth A Monster

Despite the fact that her husband commits the murders in the tragedy, Lady Macbeth exhibits a war-like ruthlessness herself. She does not have any compassion or pity for anyone and strips herself of any resemblance of traditional feminine qualities of the time period. She displays barbaric traits stronger than her husband. Mary McCarthy addresses this in “General Macbeth”; “Why is it though that Lady Macbeth seems to us a monster while Macbeth does not? Partly because she is a woman and has ‘unsexed’ herself, which makes her a monster by definition” (McCarthy 162). The denial of womanly features is staggering. But not only is she malicious and evil, as monsters are, she strives to be that way; “Unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to