Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth, a leading character in William Shakespeare’s famous
tragedy Macbeth, progresses throughout the play from a savage and
heartless creature to a delicate and fragile woman, having no regard
for mortality.
In the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is both equally ambitious
and evil as she urges her husband to kill King Duncan in order to
fulfill the witches’ prophecies by gaining social power on the throne as
king and queen. Lady Macbeth calls upon the spirits to give her
emotional strength in order to help her husband go through with the
murder plot, “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,” (1.5.39-42). She asks the spirits to take away the
tenderness, love, and pity that makes her a woman so that her
conscience will not allow her to hesitate in her wicked plans. Lady
Macbeth, seeming to have no conscience, takes total control in
planning the plot against Duncan proving to be stronger, more
ruthless, and ambitious than Macbeth. He is too honorable a man to
do what he must to be king and this worries Lady Macbeth as she
fears it may prevent him from murdering the king leaving her to
commit the crime, “Yet I do fear thy nature, It is too full o’ the milk of
human kindness to catch the nearest way,” (1.5.15-17). Assuming the
role of stronger partner, she manipulates Macbeth with effectiveness
by ignoring his objections about the murder. Refusing to understand
his doubts and hesitations about the situation, she scorns his
manhood by calling him a, “coward,” (1.7.43) and questions his
virility, “What beast was’t, then, that made you break this enterprise to
me? When you durst do it, then you were a man,” (1.7.48-49) until
Macbeth feels that he must commit the murder to prove himself.
Lady Macbeth’s strength of will persists through the murder of King
Duncan as it is she who tries to calm Macbeth after committing
tragedy Macbeth, progresses throughout the play from a savage and
heartless creature to a delicate and fragile woman, having no regard
for mortality.
In the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is both equally ambitious
and evil as she urges her husband to kill King Duncan in order to
fulfill the witches’ prophecies by gaining social power on the throne as
king and queen. Lady Macbeth calls upon the spirits to give her
emotional strength in order to help her husband go through with the
murder plot, “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,” (1.5.39-42). She asks the spirits to take away the
tenderness, love, and pity that makes her a woman so that her
conscience will not allow her to hesitate in her wicked plans. Lady
Macbeth, seeming to have no conscience, takes total control in
planning the plot against Duncan proving to be stronger, more
ruthless, and ambitious than Macbeth. He is too honorable a man to
do what he must to be king and this worries Lady Macbeth as she
fears it may prevent him from murdering the king leaving her to
commit the crime, “Yet I do fear thy nature, It is too full o’ the milk of
human kindness to catch the nearest way,” (1.5.15-17). Assuming the
role of stronger partner, she manipulates Macbeth with effectiveness
by ignoring his objections about the murder. Refusing to understand
his doubts and hesitations about the situation, she scorns his
manhood by calling him a, “coward,” (1.7.43) and questions his
virility, “What beast was’t, then, that made you break this enterprise to
me? When you durst do it, then you were a man,” (1.7.48-49) until
Macbeth feels that he must commit the murder to prove himself.
Lady Macbeth’s strength of will persists through the murder of King
Duncan as it is she who tries to calm Macbeth after committing