In the play "Macbeth" written by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most famous and frightening female characters. At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is introduced as a dominant, controlling, cold-blooded wife with an obsessive ambition to achieve kingship for her husband. Her personality begins to change drastically as the play progresses; it gradually disintegrates through a false portrayal of unyielding strength, an unsteady control of her husband and shifting involvement with supernatural powers. Her weak, sheltered, unsure and unstable condition is only revealed at the end of the play.
Her ambition for achieving kingship for her husband will drive her to do anything. She manipulates her husband with remarkable effectiveness, overriding all his objections, when he hesitates to murder, she repeatedly questions his manhood until he feels that he must commit murder to prove himself. She knows that Macbeth is a strong person, and she must seem stronger to convince him to go along with her.
Lady Macbeth by George Cattermole.
English: Poster of Thos. W. Keene in William Shake...
The sleepwalking Lady MacbethShe now has to wear a "mask" of this determined and cold character, creating more distance between her true self and Macbeth. Lady Macbeth has the persuasiveness capable of humiliating someone into murder, but has no personal capacity to execute "the dead", though she spoke, at times, as if she would take the opportunity whenever it arose. She claims that she can act to "look like the innocent flower/But be the serpent under't" Lady Macbeth imagines that she has the capability to be a remorseless and determined villain, but she isn't anything of that in reality. In fact, at the end of the play Lady Macbeth is so feeble-minded she becomes overwhelmed with guilt. The guilt that has been set upon her by her husband sprung from convincing him to kill. In reality, the final results are only...