Lady Macbeths character changes throughout the play.

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Macbeth Essay

Lady Macbeths character changes throughout the play.

Macbeth is one of the many plays that were written by William

Shakespeare. It was written in 1605, it is based on a true-life story of ‘The History of Scotland’. Shakespeare mainly wrote his plays to entertain royalty. Shakespeare’s play is much more than a dramatic re-writing of the historical facts. He made many changes mainly so that Macbeth would be a ‘play fit for a king’.

One of the main characters in the Shakespearean play

‘Macbeth’, is the wife of Macbeth, lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is a very two-sided character in this play. At one point of the play she is very powerful ambitious and evil and then suddenly she becomes trance like and feels really guilty.

In those days the stereotypical view of women were

Hardworking housewives who cooked cleaned and looked after the family. This was mainly because their egocentric husbands overpowered them.

William Shakespeare went completely opposite this view, when

He wrote Macbeth:

Lady Macbeth wants to get rid of her femininity.

‘…Unsex me here…’

She wants to get rid of the stereotypical view of women and be powerful.

Lady Macbeth is described as a confident, ambitious, over-

Powering, strong-minded, demanding, manipulate, deceitful, influential, and scheming woman. In Macbeth she took over the role of men.

Lady Macbeth influences Macbeth to kill the king and brings out

his ambition. The effect of his uncontrolled ambition lead to death, Macbeth murders his king, which is known as the greatest of all crimes, by murdering Duncan, Macbeth gains the crown but loses love, friendship, respect and in the end his life. His crime is rightly punished.

Lady Macbeth’s wicked character has an extreme impact

towards her husband. Lady Macbeth is responsible for influencing her husband to commit both crimes; she unleashes the dark side of him and motivates him to become an evil horrendous man, which he isn’t. We start to see that lady Macbeth’s actions have a huge impact on Macbeth’s character as he transforms from a decent human being to an overly bitter creature.

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In act 1 scene 5 we meet lady Macbeth for the first time, our

first impressions on lady Macbeth are that she is ambitious and passionate; she has no faith in her husband and will do anything to be in control, even by killing.

She knows her husband really well and immediately knows that he won’t have the strength to kill the king.

‘…Yet I do fear thy nature; it is too full of o’the milk of kindness…’

She realise that he doesn’t have the strength and will need her help.

 

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