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Lady macbeth's personality and motives
Lady macbeth's personality and motives
Shakespeare's treatment of female characters
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Throughout the play Macbeth, characters start to emerge as dark and cruel. The author William Shakespeare writes about a strong and ambitiously powerful woman named Lady Macbeth. In the play, Lady Macbeth’s character shares with the audience that she believes her husband is not man enough to excel in completing the prophecy that the three witches have given to him. As a women, she makes sure to tell us that just because she is a women that you can be strong and independent. Although it may seem that Lady Macbeth has a tough exterior, she does proceed to have a conscience that causes her problems that comes to display later in the play. For example, Lady Macbeth hears news that her husband has been giving prophecies. The prophecies make Lady
Macbeth want to become capable to push her husband over the edge in becoming ruthless. She believes that he is not efficient in committing any harm towards others. She decides the only way to help herself with this problem she would have to conjure up spirits. “Come, you spirits that assist murderous thoughts, make me less like a woman and more like a man, and fill me from head to toe with deadly cruelty! Thicken my blood and clog up my veins so I won’t feel remorse, so that no human compassion can stop my evil plan or prevent me from accomplishing it!”(Shakespeare Act 1, Scene 5) Lady Macbeth wants to be able to manipulate her husband in becoming evil. She hopes these newly found spirits will help her gain the capabilities to lead her husband down the “right path” towards victory in becoming the next king. To add, for centuries women were portrayed as weak individuals. Lady Macbeth changes t ideological views on being a women throughout reading of this play. She takes biological traits from a women and morphed it into being heinous.
In Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, the third murderers identity is unknown and it is never revealed at the end of the play. But there are some clues throughout the story that suggests Lady Macbeth could be the unknown third murderer. Lady Macbeth could be the third murderer in Macbeth because she shows signs of wanting to be like a man, she is the one that influenced Macbeth to kill Duncan, and because she shows signs of extreme guilt later in the story. With these three pieces of evidence, Lady Macbeth is shown to be the third murderer in Macbeth.
As Macbeth becomes less dependent on his wife, she loses more control. She loses control of her husband, but mostly, of herself, proving her vacillating truth. Lady Macbeth’s character gradually disintegrates through a false portrayal of unyielding strength, an unsteady control of her husband and shifting involvement with supernatural powers.Throughout the duration of play Lady Macbeth’s truly decrepit and vulnerable nature is revealed. Lady Macbeth has been the iron fist and authority icon for Macbeth, yet deep down, she never carried such traits to begin with. This duality in Lady Macbeth’s character plays a huge role in planting the seed for Macbeth’s downfall and eventual demise.
Lady Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare’s most famous and frightening female characters. As she is Macbeth’s wife, her role is significant in his rise and fall from royalty. She is Macbeth’s other half. During Shakespearean times, women were regarded as weak insignificant beings that were there to give birth and look beautiful. They were not thought to be as intelligent or equal to men. Though in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the highest influence in Macbeth’s life. Her role was so large; in fact, that she uses her position to gain power, stay strong enough to support her unstable Lord, and fails miserably while their relationship falls apart. Everything about Lady Macbeth is enough to create the perfect villain because of her ability to manipulate everyone around her. It appears that even she can’t resist the perfect crime.
The character of Lady Macbeth is a complex one, there is much that can be said regarding the juxtaposition of ideas concerning her behavior. Within this essay I shall attempt to elaborate on her forceful, selfish and contradictory character.
As part of my English GCSE I have been asked to evaluate the 1st and 2nd
The play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, explores the darkest corners of the human psyche. It artfully takes its audience to a place that allows one to examine what a human being is truly capable of once tempted by the allure of power. In the play, Scottish noble Macbeth and his wife inevitably fall prey to their own self corruption. Initiated by prophesies made by three mysterious witches, the Macbeths set their sights on the throne. When the curtains open on the plot to murder King Duncan, Lady Macbeth is the driving force. Her criminal mind and desire for ruthlessness have led many a critic to define her as evil. Closer examination, however, reveals that she is a multifaceted character; other sides to her persona include: genuine good will towards her husband, coy manipulation, and feminine tenderness.
Clearly, Macbeth?s sudden movement at the news that he will be king shows how his ambition is triggered. Macbeth is so excited that he starts, and Banquo notices this. In addition, Macbeth?s soliloquy in scene seven reveals his fears about killing Duncan:
aims in writing the play was to show his support for the king and that
When we think of ambitious characters, we often remember the iconic Disney villains, like Scar or Maleficent. They are classic villains who follow their ambition to achieve their goal. However, the archetype for the ambitious character started from the original and vastly interesting Macbeth, from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth’s ambition spurs him to take action, so he murders the current king, Duncan. After he gets the position of king, he struggles to rule and take definitive action, and instead becomes overwhelmed by his lust for power. While many scholars cite Macbeth’s ambition as his tragic flaw and the primary cause of his downfall, there are many other factors that lead to his death, such as his inability to lead and his paranoia.
Macbeth rejects conformation to traditional gender roles in its portrayal of Lady Macbeth’s relationship with her husband, her morals and their effect on her actions, and her hunger for power. Her regard for Macbeth is one of low respect and beratement, an uncommon and most likely socially unacceptable attitude for a wife to have towards her spouse at the time. She often ignores morality and acts for the benefit of her husband, and subsequently herself. She is also very power-hungry and lets nothing stand in the way of her success. Lady Macbeth was a character which challenged expectations of women and feminism when it was written in the seventeenth century.
In Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth, Shakespeare creates the ruthless character Macbeth, who is willing to go beyond any measure in order to attain the power of being king, including murder, deceit, betrayal and overpowering the chain of being. Macbeth was first tempted by the idea of kingship when three witches presented him with their portent of Macbeth becoming the next King of Scotland. Ebullient, Macbeth, immediately informed his wife of the news and they both pondered the thought of having the power to rule all of Scotland. Lady Macbeth, a power seeker herself, promptly schemed a plan to kill King Duncan in order for her and her husband to rule, displaying her ready ambition for power. Macbeth’s thirst for power ate away at his conscience
Lady Macbeth human qualities are proof that she is a multifaceted character.She is in duel equal partnership with Macbeth.As the play progresses,ambition sinks in and sends Lady Macbeth down a dark and non-returnable path.
Lady Macbeth dispels all of her feminine characteristics, seeing any form of compassion, gentleness, or affectation as a great weakness. She commands that the spirits “unsex” her, wishing to rid herself of any femininity (1. 5. 43). Lady Macbeth denounces human qualities, and would rather be cruel, cunning, and savage, so that she can attain the power that she desires, and while Macbeth is “not without ambition” Lady Macbeth sees that he does not possess the malice required to achieve his immediate goals (1. 5. 18). Macbeth is “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness”; his compassion makes him too weak to secure what he desires alone (1. 5. 16). Lady Macbeth even tells her husband bluntly that she, a woman, is manlier than he. Even though “murder” is not to be “repeated in a woman’s ear” it is Lady Macbeth who ultimately assumes responsibility for the murder of King Duncan (2. 3. 80-81). When his dead body is found, Macbeth, in his anxiety, kills the two chamber guards. Then, in a weak attempt to justify his actions, he begins rambling on madly: “Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man” (2. 3. 104-105). Again Lady Macbeth assumes the “man’s role” when she faints to cut off Macbeth’s senseless speech, saving him from falling even further into
Women are the downfall of men. Manipulation is a prime example which takes place in
Analysis of Major Characters in William Shakespeare's Macbeth Macbeth = == == == Because we first hear of Macbeth in the wounded captain's account of his battlefield valor, our initial impression is of a brave and capable warrior.