Macbeth
William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth tells the story of a power hungry couple, set in 11th century Scotland, who will stop at nothing to achieve their ultimate goal of becoming King and Queen of Scotland. Throughout the play, Shakespeare emphasizes the theme that power corrupts. Shakespeare expresses this motif through the deterioration of the manipulative Lady Macbeth, by showing that power can go as far as to corrupting a person so much that they end up losing their mind. To get power Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth that guilt can be easily washed away, but once Lady Macbeth obtains the power, the guilt which accompanies the power ends up driving her insane. In an attempt to gain power, Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth that like the blood on their hands, guilt is easy to wash away. Lady Macbeth is an ambitious and manipulative character who’s lust for power is well documented by Shakespeare. When the opportunity arises for Lady Macbeth and her husband Macbeth to become King and Queen of Scotland, Lady Macbeth grabs the opportunity and runs with it. Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband into joining her plot to kill the current king of Scotland, Duncan. Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth her . . .
These two quotes show Lady Macbeth’s drastic change in both personality and attitude. When Macbeth returns from killing Duncan, Lady Macbeth finds him in a state of shock and disbelief. After Lady Macbeth gets the two guards drunk, she waits for Macbeth to return from killing Duncan. Before, she is cocky and feels that her guilt can be easily cleared. That night, the ambitious couple decides to execute the plan just as discussed. The fact that Lady Macbeth is willing to do anything for power, leads to her deterioration because she decides to resort to murder in order to get power, and her conscience got the best of her. This change shows her deterioration, because it shows that the memories of the deeds she commits are repeating through her mind, so much so that she eventually goes crazy and kills herself. 1, 45) Eventually, Lady Macbeth can no longer take the guilt, and she resorts to killing herself. Lady Macbeth is thrown into power after everyone comes to the perception that the guards killed Duncan. Lady Macbeth becomes Queen of Scotland when the lords of Scotland decide to make Macbeth King, and officially crown the two in Scone. Lady Macbeth’s ambition for power, and her underestimation of guilt end up driving her insane. But after, she realizes that it takes a lot more than water to make her hands clean and get rid of the guilt which plagues her.
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