Lady Macbeth - Character Change

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Macbeth

Throughout the entire play Lady Macbeth goes from being a very powerful woman and having an authoritative roll in the play to not being in complete control of what she is doing after the murder of King Duncan, there is a bizarre twist in her character and she becomes very deceiving.

        At the beginning of Act I Scene 5 Lady Macbeth is reading a letter that her husband Macbeth has written her, it tells her that on the day of victory in the battle he met three sisters and they predicted three things that would happen to him in the future. Lady Macbeth feels that the sisters cannot be normal people, she believes that they may be ‘witches’. She believes that the three prophecies will only come true if Macbeth does things so that they happen, one of the predictions tells that Macbeth will become King, due to what she believes Lady Macbeth soliloquises that Macbeth must actually have to kill King Duncan before he can take over his place in the throne and become King. During Lady Macbeths soliloquy she uses religious references ‘pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell’. She believes that Macbeth is too kind to commit the crime and she fears that if he did kill the King he would feel guilt and he would pity Duncan, this may lead to being caught. She shows that she feels this by saying ‘I fear thy nature. It is too full o’th’milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way…’

        When the attendant enters the room and informs Lady Macbeth that Macbeth is approaching and that ‘the King comes here tonight’ she is quite rude to the attendant as if she is willing him to leave. This may be because she wants to ask evil spirits to help her with the murder, she asks them to ‘unsex me here’ this shows she will do almost anything for the throne and power, even give up her gender so she could be the more dominant sex. This would have been shocking to people at the time the play was performed because women were important to the society, they were relied on for the practical jobs around the house whereas men went out and earned a living.

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        As Macbeth enters the room Lady Macbeth instantly praises him and flatters him, she is treating Macbeth with consideration. She refers to him as ‘Worthy Cawdor’, this may be to convince Macbeth to commit the murder of Duncan. She says ‘look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t’, this shows a more deceiving side to Lady Macbeth. She is telling Macbeth to act innocent and appear normal but to plan his actions and behaviour towards the plot all of the time.

        In this part of the scene Lady Macbeth is being very controlling towards Macbeth and the things she ...

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