Macbeth is known as one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies. This play is one of his best known and most widely recognized, as well as one of the shortest and most intense. In this play there are many famous and inspiring soliloquies (speeches of one's thoughts). Lady Macbeth makes many of these. In Act I, Scene 5, Lady Macbeth receives a letter from Lord Macbeth and the scene opens with her reading it. After finishing, she speaks with the messenger, and is then left alone with her own thoughts to pray her famous "unsex me here..." prayer. This prayer is the first soliloquy she makes and is one of the most important in understanding who Lady Macbeth really is.
             In her prayer Lady Macbeth states that the messenger's hoarse voice reminder her of the raven that "croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan" (1.5.35). She is praying to the spirits that tend to murderous or deadly thoughts and asks these spirits to "unsex me here," (1.5.37). She wants the spirits to remove all of her femininity, because it is interfering with her plan to murder Duncan (Morrow 49). The request to be unsexed also indicates that men are more capable of cruelty and murder than women are. Continuing her prayer she states that she wants to stop every way that regret has of reaching her heart and that she will feel no natural instincts of compassion. She states in her prayer that she considers the crime and murder of Duncan her own deed instead of Lord Macbeth.
             Lady Macbeth is considered to be one of Shakespeare's most frightening and famous female characters. The first time she is seen in the play she has already begun the plot for murdering Duncan, even though her husband does not want to. From this scene you gather that she is not only stronger than Lord Macbeth is, but she is also more ambitious, more ruthless, and more determined. Unlike most women, Lady Macbeth knows how much stronger she is than ...