Lady Macbeth's Transformation

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Recommended: Characterisation in act 1 of Macbeth

Lady Macbeth is one of the most powerful characters in the play, Macbeth. She is first seen reading a letter from her husband, Macbeth. He tells her of the prophecy of the three witches and of his new title as Thane of Cawdor. After reading the letter, she remarks on her thoughts of how he is too kind and unmotivated to rise farther in stature. She prays to the spirits for Macbeth to be crowned King of Scotland; this scene begins their rise to nobility. In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth is determined to become the next Scottish Queen as she influences her husband to commit regicide. Her ambition, strong-will, ruthlessness, and deceit help her achieve her nefarious purposes and thirst for power, but synchronously lead …show more content…

She is aware of what she wants and she knows how to get it. In Act 1, Scene 5, she laments Macbeth’s humanity and conscience as she says, “Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness.” She believes that he will not go through with the murder, so she begins to question his manhood and humiliate him by saying, “Wouldst thou…live a coward in thine own esteem?” She calls him foolish, a coward, and an innocent flower to convince him to murder King Duncan. Even though she belittled her own husband because she thought that he was too soft and weak to be king, she had a tender side. When Macbeth almost backed down from killing Duncan, she resolved to killing him herself, but as she looked at the King she said, “Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't.” She loved her father, and the King reminded her of him, so she couldn’t go through with it either. She persuaded Macbeth to murder the king by the power and influence she held over him. He loved her very much and would have done anything for her, even go to the lengths of killing his own kinsman, his King, to make her happy as Scotland’s …show more content…

She tells her husband to "leave all the rest to me.” She is full of deceit and lies as she drugs the guards, returns the daggers to blame the grooms, and then proceeds to faint to pretend that she was too feminine and weak to be an accomplice to murder. Early on in the play, Lady Macbeth is able to conceal her morality; but as it progresses, her guilty conscience overcomes her as she begins to sleepwalk, go insane, and eventually commit suicide. In Act 2, Scene 2, she says, “A little water clears us of this deed. How easy is it, then!” After helping Macbeth commit the murder, she deceives him and herself into believing that if they wash their hands of the physical blood, the stain on their souls will be cleansed as well. In Act 5, Scene 1, the Doctor and Gentlewoman see Lady Macbeth sleepwalking and murmuring to herself, “Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him…will these hands ne'er be clean?” She washed her hands raw of the blood that never went away. In the beginning, she thought she had no conscience, and that her actions would have no effect on her, but the stain of her guilt would never wash

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