Later on, a messenger comes to tell Lady Macbeth that King Duncan will be arriving that night. She finds this chance fit for making Macbeth King. She calls upon evil to get rid of her womanliness, by taking away all her natural emotions.
Then, Macbeth tells her that Duncan was going to stay the night, which is when Lady Macbeth says that Duncan would not see daylight again. She starts persuading Macbeth to kill Duncan by saying that everyone could see his thoughts by the expression on his face. She tells Macbeth to be like a poisonous serpent, which lies hidden in the innocent flowers. She also tells him that if a person of his type has to have evil and must be good at deceiving others to achieve certain ambitions.
When everyone has gathered, it is a very formal scene and Lady Macbeth starts deceiving a lot of people by keeping all her inner most feelings inside, making her like a queen deceiver.
However, Macbeth changes his mind again. He does so because he is very pleased with the recent honours he was given by the King. He says that he wants to use his honours while they are new. She accuses Macbeth of being a coward and with the use of a powerful speech she says that she would go any length in order to get what she wanted. Evil has completely taken over Lady Macbeth at this stage of the play, and she sees an opportunity to make her husband King and does not intend to let this chance slip away. She continuously brings up images of horror in their conversation, and eventually persuades Macbeth again to kill Duncan. He is told that there is no chance of failure if he were to keep his nerve.
In the first act, Lady Macbeth shows that Macbeth is a brave warrior, on the battlefield, but is a weak and unsettled person when of the battlefield.
In act 2 scene 2, Lady Macbeth reveals that she would not be able to murder Duncan in his sleep because Duncan would remind her of her father. This shows that Lady Macbeth realizes that murder is wrong, as her conscience and guilt starts to kick in. We start to think here that perhaps Lady Macbeth does have feelings.
Everyone starts finding it suspicious that Macbeth had killed the two soldiers without even questioning them, so Lady Macbeth cunningly faints at a perfect moment so that she became the centre of attention.
In act 3 scene 2 Macbeth is feeling uneasy like Lady Macbeth but she tries to comfort him by telling him, what’s done is done. Once all the deeds had been done, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth expected to feel happy and excited, however they feel unsafe and threatened. Macbeth then starts to trust no one, not even his own wife. He hires people to commit his murders, and doesn’t trust them either. He even kills his best friend (Banquo). Macbeth starts seeing the ghost of Banquo and a dagger, and Lady Macbeth again accuses him for being a coward. However, she does cover up for him when he did not appear in the banquet, which was celebrating his coronation.
The reader can see that even at the end of Act 3, Lady Macbeth is still dominating Macbeth. However, one can see that it is getting out of hand and that things were not working out like they were supposed to.
It is in act 5 scene 1, where Lady Macbeth first starts having nightmares. In this scene, the audience notices that Lady Macbeth is starting to lose it mentally. She continuously has horrific images popping into her mind, the same ones which Macbeth had. Macbeth asks for the doctor to heal her, but is answered by saying that she is incurable.
Overall, one can tell that Lady Macbeth had a very strong personality in the first three acts. In those acts she was dominant, persuasive, manipulative and scheming. It is obvious that she was the main reason behind the death of Duncan. However as the play goes on, Lady Macbeth starts feeling guilty and very paranoid. It is very obvious to see that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s roles have switched. Lady Macbeth ended up with all of Macbeth’s attributes at the end of the play and vice versa.
