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Macbeth- the Character of Lady Macbeth

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Macbeth- the Character of Lady Macbeth
Macbeth- The Character of Lady Macbeth
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By Tash Weeks

Lady Macbeth is a very manipulative and clever character, whose attributes and feelings change throughout the play. At the start of the script, she is a very driven and strong character, pushing her beloved Macbeth to go do the dark deeds that he needs to do to get to his eventual goal- to become king and rule all of Scotland. But little does he know that she isn’t doing it just for him- she wants the power more than anything else, to be able to rule and have it her way. Before the night of the murder, Lady Macbeth shows her drive behind her husband; “When you durst do it, then you were a man.” This is after her first try of pushing Macbeth to do the dirty deed of killing king Duncan, and where the not so strong opinionated Macbeth is having second thoughts. She taunts him with the thought of him not killing King Duncan would not make him a man, and admitting that she would even “dash’d the brains out” of her own child, to make him feel weaker, twisting his mind to make him do the crime. Using the harsh word of “dashing” gives the reader a strong and horrible picture in their head, of Lady Macbeth ruthlessly killing her own child by “dashing” its brains out and basically ripping it apart, showing her dedication and desperation for the role as Queen of Scotland and to her husband, but in a very gruesome and disgusting manner. It also shows her mad side that she would do that even to her own child, but I will explain further in the second paragraph.

Another side to Lady Macbeth is that she is a slightly mental character, and is obviously not all there in the head. Later on in the play, she shows signs of going power mad, starts sleep walking, cussing about her past and what she has done, and eventually she kills herself in regret of her deeds and failure to herself. “Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood” she curses in one act of the play, whispering to the ‘spirits’ supposedly

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