Lady Macbeth
"Macbeth" by William Shakespeare, introduces the concept of one character being both the antagonist and the protagonist. He portrays a gluttonous couple, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, which cultivate off each other's downfalls in the hopes of gaining wealth and prestige. In the beginning, Lady Macbeth has a king of power over Macbeth that she can only achieve through his devotion to her. She adds to his false sense of security, and Macbeth confides in her and lets her persuade him. Lady Macbeth portrays a domineering, selfish character who uses cruelty as a guise.She forces herself to become cruel in order to convince Macbeth to further his ambition stating "Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here" (lines 39-40). At this point, she w
Although Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to murder Duncan, she is not held fully accountable for his actions for the simple fact that only Macbeth can control his actions. Her suicide reveals not only the extremity of her remorse for Duncan, but shows the reader just how weak and selfish she really is. After Duncan's murder, Lady Macbeth begins a slow psychological decline into madness- just as ambition affecta her more strongly than Macbeth before the crime, so does guilt plague her more strongly afterward. Even though such negativity is depicted of her character, Shakespeare does not want the reader to judge her negatively. Her regret is so strong that the reader is forced to look as objectively as possible to the circumstances under which her devious actions took place. Her murderous acts and derogatory persuasion of Macbeth is heavily regretted, showing the reader that she posesses some sense of morality, however minute. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" (lines 57-58). Lady Macbeth's mental breakdown is portrayed in the sleepwalking scene and her extreme guilt is revealed when she states "Here's the smell of the blood still. He has a conscience throughout the entire story, prohibiting him from forgetting all that he knows is right. These women use female methods of achieving power, that is, manipulation disguised by male guises, to further their supposedly male ambitioins. ishes that she were not a woman so that she could commit the murder herself. her husband implies that she is a masculine soul inhabiting a female body, which seems to link masculinity to ambition and violence. And again the words of his wife supplied with the warped foresight's of three witches, impels him to stay devoted to his utterly selfish ends. Macbeth's fall from grace to misery, caused by Lady Macbeth, is truly tragic in it's nature.
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