The play Macbeth by William Shakespeare is overflowing in evil and greed. Lady Macbeth is the overriding source of evil in the play. She tries to convenience Macbeth to kill Duncan, but in reality she wants to kill him herself. She does does not want the prophecy to come true that states Duncan’s heirs will rule the throne. She desires to be Queen. As the character of Lady Macbeth progresses, she moves from evil and greed to showing some weaknesses and slight insanity. Lady Macbeth is bothered by her desire to become a queen and her willingness to sacrifice everything. In the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is already plotting Duncan's murder. Because women are often unable to kill, Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to make her male. In Act I, Scene 5, she states if she were not a woman she could do it herself. "Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty!” Even though Macbeth listed eight reason against the murder, Lady Macbeth persuades him to kill Duncan (I vii). Macbeth feels remorse immediately following the murder, but Lady Macbeth assures him that everything will be fine. When he worries over his blood stained hands she tells him in Act II, Scene 2 that "A little water clears us of this deed. How easy is it then!" Lady Macbeth is very successful at persuading Macbeth to do things that he knows are wrong. Going against the stereotype of a woman, Lady Macbeth is unkind and uncaring. She tells him, “How now, my lord! Why do you keep alone, Of sorriest fancies your companions making, Using those thoughts which should indeed have died With them they think on? Things without all remedy Should be without regard: what’s done is done”. (citation) This speech symbolizes her cruelty, and her evil accounts for the murders that occur throughout the play. Lady Macbeth is far more cruel and ambitious than her husband. Lady Macbeth does show weakness and guilt. The first sign of weakness comes in Act II, Scene 2 as she describes why she can not kill Duncan. She explains, “Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t.” (Citation) The second example is in Act III, Scene 2 when Lady Macbeth tries to comfort
In Shakespare’s play Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s destiny is formed by her own actions through mind and free-will. In act I, Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to murder Duncan, even though Macbeth was strongly against it. Lady Macbeth is very successful at persuading him to go against his better judgment. She entirely changes the stereotype of women being kind and caring in the first act. After Macbeth writes home telling of his murderous plans, Lady Macbeth begins talking to evil spirits. Because women often lack the ruthlessness to kill someone, Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to make her male. One of the most vivid descriptions of Lady Macbeth’s wickedness is directly after Macbeth announces to her he does not want to kill Duncan. This speech symbolizes Lady Macbeth’s evilness. She is ruthless, because of her evil accounts for the murders that occur throughout the play. Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to commit murders that will make them king
Macbeth is confused as he is arguing with himself on what he should do. He states reasons not to kill Duncan, because Macbeth is his noble kinsmen and the act would bring dishonor. However, he also states reason why he should kill him, because Macbeth will then become king and fulfill the witches ' fortune. Lady Macbeth, who appears in the beginning as the driving force for the murder of King Duncan, also develops internal conflict. At first, Lady Macbeth seems to be a woman of extreme confidence and will. But, as situations become more and more unstable in the play, guilt develops inside her. For instance, she exclaims; "Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. / Look not so pale. I tell you again, Banquo 's / Burried; he cannot come out on 's grave" (Shakespeare V, ii, 65-67). Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and frets about her evil wrongdoings because she is extremely guilty of her influence on Macbeth to commit the murder. Lady Macbeth reacts emotionally and dwells on her actions as guilt eats at her soul.
Lady Macbeth is a vicious and overly ambitious woman, her desire of having something over rules all the moral behaviors that one should follow. On the beginning of the novel, Macbeth receives the news that if Duncan, the current king, passed away he would be the next one to the throne. So,
Firstly, Macbeth and Mae both display that their ambition leads to their downfall due to the greed that took over their character and motivated them to continue. In Macbeth, Macbeth is thinking of killing Duncan but is still unsure about the whole idea. He says, " I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on th' other." (Shakespeare 1.7.25-28). Macbeth has just explained that there is no real justification for the crime because Duncan is his relative, a good king, and, furthermore, a guest at his castle. This quote here is describing how Macbeth realizes that he is being overly greedy and that if you are too greedy, there is a very high chance that you'll end up in a very bad situation.
On the contrary, Lady Macbeth begins as a ruthless woman. She has a manipulative and controlling character, convincing Macbeth to kill King Duncan; she will do anything to gain power. When she says, “How tender ‘tis to love the babe…I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out” (I.vii. 55-58), she shows her ruthlessness and her “bad” ambition. In her “role reversal” with Macbeth, she gains somewhat of a conscience and realizes her guilt. When she tells him, “You must leave this” (III. ii. 35), she wants Macbeth to forget about his plan to murder Banquo’s family. She is very hesitant about committing another murder and does not want Macbeth to follow through with his plan.
Lady Macbeth has the power over her husband to persuade him into doing anything she requests. She manipulates Macbeth with incredible efficiency by overruling all of his thoughts and changing his perspective on the present. Even though the many tasks that need to be completed are difficult to understand why they need to be done, Lady Macbeth will always convince Macbeth to do it. Her husband often tells her that she has a “masculine soul” which is obvious due to her murderous and envious actions. When the time came to kill king Duncan, Macbeth believes that his wife has gone insane and tells her that the crime they were about to commit was a horrible idea. As a result of his questioning, Lady Macbeth says that executing the crime will show his loyalty to her. On the night of the assassination Lady Macbeth watched the guards of the castle become drunk and unaware of what was going on. Lady Macbeth sent her husband into the castle to kill King Duncan. The married couple fled the scene leaving the guards covered in the evidence. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are stained with the blood of their victims and the feeling of guilt in their stomach.
In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the true villain of the play as she is evil, ambitious and eventually insane. Lady Macbeth masterminded the idea to kill King Duncan and planted the vision into Macbeths mind, she convinced Macbeth to commit such a crime, and her love for her husband was eventually overruled by her determination and lust for power. Throughout the play she starts to show her true colours and the destructive force of her ambition, which inevitably results in nothing but disaster.
As the main motivator to Macbeth’s actions, Lady Macbeth is a character whose ambition and greed lead her and her husband to their inevitable fate of death. Lady Macbeth’s relentlessness, as well as her longing for power, generate an emotion of endless pain and suffering
Ambition and greed have always been defined as the deep intense and selfish desire in the person's mind. Throughout the history and myth that have been written, we can see the downfall of greats just base on that greed of wanting for the power and wealth. In a Greek Mythology "Helen of Sparta" there is a beauty women named Helen of Troy. In the myth she is the daughter of the Greek god Zeus and Leda. She was the most beautiful women in the world. Who married to King Menelaus of Sparta, but eloped with the Prince Paris of Troy, because that she is resulting the Trojan War which white out the empire. Her beauty cause the fight between the men and led the empire to fall, but what is truly cause of the fall? Was it the greed or ambition of wanting? Was it her beauty? Her voice of word? Or is it something else? In the Shakespeare's play Macbeth, we can see the true reasons of Macbeth’s downfall, it was not only because of his ambition, but also because his wife Lady Macbeth’s words and evil plan to get the him the power of crown. Which shows that Lady Macbeth is most responsible for the Macbeth’s downfall because the she used her influence and ambition to gain power, that which eventually led to the Macbeth’s downfall, but many other people have argued that she is not the only one who can be blame for the downfall. It was Macbeth who chose to take that action to kill King Duncan. In fact of that, her continued judgement of his manly character forced him to take action to kill
Lady MacBeth was one of the biggest antagonist through the first half of MacBeth. She was greedy and wanted power more than anything, including her husband’s reservations about murder and getting
The concept of greed shows itself as the root of the many immoral acts committed in by various roles. These acts in which was caused by greed, as the Pardoner, from The Canterbury Tales, defines greed’s purpose. This includes how greed pulls them to corruption such for the characters from The Importance of Being Earnest. Moreover, Judas’s betrayal and Macbeth’s collapse demonstrate what greed can produce as a result: destruction and degeneration. Although the characters differ, their obsessions with their immoral acts possess similar desires. By condemning and demoralizing the characters with many types of desires, the authors prove that greed is the driving force
Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare’s play Macbeth is introduced as an incredulously ambitious woman who will do whatever it takes to seize the crown for Macbeth. However, towards the end of the play she begins to feel guilty as well as paranoid as a result from her ambitious actions. For example, at the beginning of the play she lets ambition lead her actions and delves into supernatural powers to make herself cruel as well as without remorse when preparing for the murder of King Duncan: “Come you spirits … /Of direst cruelty/Make thick my blood/stop up the access and passage to remorse,”(I, v, 41-46). Lady Macbeth is aware of her morality in the beginning and understands that in order to complete this sinful deed, she must rid herself from feeling guilt. Her actions of calling upon evil spirits shows her brutality and determination of achieving more power even if it does corrupt her morality and mental state in the future. The ambition and desire for power she carries in the
Macbeth is a Scottish play by William Shakespeare. It is a classic, tragic play of power, ambition, loyalty, honor, greed, murders, and guilt. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a loyal and honorable soldier to king Duncan of Scotland. Later in the play, Macbeth is led by the ambition of power after the predictions of three witches him being the king. Macbeth is also influenced by his wife, lady Macbeth’s ambition and greed of power to make the predictions come true. To make the predictions come true Macbeth turns evil and tyrant from a loyal and honorable soldier, committing murders for his greed of power. Macbeth commits all the murders although he had second thoughts of not doing all this and felt guilty, but his greed of power has
While it has been confirmed that numerous characters view Lady Macbeth as a “gentle lady” (2.3.96), she is, however, a woman who desires to live a luxurious life. After receiving the message that Macbeth will soon become king, Lady Macbeth is shown to be in a forward-looking attitude and praises her husband that she cannot wait to be Queen of Scotland. Lady Macbeth’s greediness can be demonstrated as she says, “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be/ What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;/ It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness...Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem/ To have thee crowned withal” (1.5.15-17.32-33). These lines of the speech establishes that Lady Macbeth is the dominant partner in the relationship, and her plan of helping Macbeth to become king, will also have her as queen undoubtedly. Lady Macbeth is a clever woman, who can organize plans that everything will go her way. The wickedness of Lady Macbeth is shown as she fears of her femininity and invites evil “[s]pirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts…[to] unsex [her], And fill [her] from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty” (1.5.47-50). After Lady Macbeth has been informed of King Duncan’s arrival to her castle, her thoughts shortly turn to murder because she wishes Duncan murdered without any remorse. Since Lady Macbeth had opened her mentality and body to
At the very beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is provoked by the letter she receives by Macbeth and starts plotting the murder of Duncan. She also wishes she were a man such that she could commit the murder all by herself saying so in Act 1 Scene 5, “Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty” (Macbeth 1.5.36-52). She appeals to these spirits to remove all aspects of her femininity and seeks to gain power through the prophecy of the witches. Her fear about the ability of her husband to commit the murder is subdued in her designated gender. Lady Macbeth manages her feminine power through her sensuality and pretended weakness through her fainting streak at the notice of Duncan’s death. Manipulation, usually through sexuality is often depicted as the source of women’s power still Lady Macbeth uses this power of hers to commit murder, a masculine demonstration of power. Lady Macbeth in her soliloquy about the planning of Duncan’s death refers to her husband as an individual who plays honestly and does not engage in wrongdoing.