The Influence of Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's Macbeth

The Influence of Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's Macbeth

In Shakespeare's tragedy, Macbeth, is seen as a courageous

soldier who is loyal to the King but is corrupted by the witches

prophecies and by Lady Macbeth's and his own ambition. This is because of

the weakness of Macbeth's character and the strong power of Lady

Macbeth as she is easily able to influence him. Her strength

motivates him at the start but after he realizes what he has done it

is himself that continues in his murderous, bloody path. At the

beginning of the play Lady Macbeth appears as a kind wife

but underneath lies a scheming and treacherous woman. Both Macbeth and his wife go through many changes throughout the course of this play. They go from being honored, noble people to being reduced to nothing. They both have tragic flaws such as ambition and greed which bring them to their down fall.

In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a strong soldier who

fights for the King without mercy but his strive for ambition and his

curious nature leads him to the witches who greet him with a prophecy.

Banquo realizes that there must be a trick hidden in the witches

prophecies somewhere but Macbeth refuses to accept that, and when Lady

Macbeth finds out about the witches her strong desire for ambition and

her cold nature leads Macbeth astray. Lady Macbeth's ambition far exceeds Macbeths and so she is able to get Macbeth to agree with her to kill King Duncan. Macbeth still has a conscience at this stage because he is very hesitant about killing the King but his weak nature over comes him. He has a conscience throughout the entire play as this is seen by the hallucinations of

the dagger and the ghost of Banquo. His vivid imag...

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...as already thrown away his conscience, so much so, that Macbeth continues to commit even more evil acts.

Over the course of the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth greatly

change with respect to their characters and their personalities.

Although Macbeth was weak at first it was the strong Lady Macbeth who

helped him through the first murder. Due to the effort put into controlling

Macbeth and his conscience, she lost control of hers and in turn became mentally ill and killed herself. Thus in the end it was worthy to

call Macbeth and his wife "a dead butcher and his fiend like queen"

but it must not be forgotten that at the beginning of the play Macbeth

and his wife were ordinary nobles at the time. They both had tragic flaws which included being too greedy and ambitious for their own good. These flaws became the cause of their bloody downfall.