l and eventual demise. At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is introduced as a dominant, controlling, heartless wife with an obsessive ambition to achieve kingship for her husband. Her weak, sheltered, unsure and unstable condition is only revealed at the end of the play. However, the audience begins to see hints of this hidden nature by the manner in which Macbeth addresses her. Contrary to her supposed ruthless nature, her husband regards her as a pure being (Coursen 42). He attempts to shield her from foreign agencies by saying, "Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck," (Shakespeare 208). It is only in private that Lady Macbeth shows her weak!
             nesses. As opposed to her seemingly violent persona, Lady Macbeth is horrified by blood, and during her sleepwalking soliloquy refers to her hand as if suggesting a delicate stature by uttering this: "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." (Shakespeare 252). Although Lady Macbeth is unstable and vulnerable, she uses dramatic analogies to persuade her openly fragile husband to follow through with the first murder: "I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this" (Shakespeare 204).
             Her shocking and persuasive effect on Macbeth convinces him that he is settled. By hearing a woman who seems to be fearless of his anxieties, he is soothed. But even here we begin to catch a greater glimpse of Lady Macbeth's very unstable mind. By using such a graphic descrip
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