Was Lady Macbeth 'Evil'? Essay

Lady Macbeth from “Macbeth” was a very powerful and influential character in the play. However, her traits are portrayed as bitter making her seem as an undesirable figure. Throughout the book she is interpreted as controlling, demanding, power seeking, and corrupt, but it will later come back and cause conflict. In the book she says, “ Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures… For it must seem their guilt” (Shakespeare 59). At this point in the book, Lady Macbeth is showing how controlling she is by taking the matters into

Lady Macbeth is far more evil than the witches; however Macbeth is more than just a dagger in her hand. Reasons for this statement are that the witches simply tell Macbeth the

Lady Macbeth is a vicious and overly ambitious woman, her desire of having something over rules all the moral behaviors that one should follow. On the beginning of the novel, Macbeth receives the news that if Duncan, the current king, passed away he would be the next one to the throne. So,

In the play, “Macbeth”, the character that stands out the most is Lady Macbeth. Her role in this story is significant, she is an evil, ruthless, and ambitious person. She is responsible for the murders that her husband commits because she was bloodthirsty for the crown. In fact, she then becomes more eager to get the crown than Macbeth himself and soon realizes that once you commit one violent act, there is almost no way of ever turning back. An analysis of Lady Macbeth reveals that she is a powerful character who adds complexity and depth to a play about murder, madness, and revenge.

     Lady Macbeth progresses throughout the play from a seemingly savage and heartless creature to a very delicate and fragile woman. In the beginning of the play, she is very ambitious and hungry for power. She pushes Macbeth to kill Duncan in order to fulfill the witches’ prophecy. In Act I, Scene 6, she asks the gods to make her emotionally strong like a man in order to help her husband go through with the murder plot. She says, “Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty!” Also, she does everything in her power to convince Macbeth that he would be wrong not to kill Duncan. In Act I,

Lady Macbeth appears evil, but this is proof of her devotion and drive to assist Macbeth rise to the throne. Macbeth is doubtful about their plan to kill King Duncan; however, Lady Macbeth bombards him with comments that question his courage. She goes as far as telling him his love his worth nothing if he refuses, which proves her to be dominant and controlling using his own weakness against him. His love for her. The fact that she belittles his confidence, insults his abilities, and questions his manhood & ambitions showing how manipulative she can be, but also wise because it worked in her favour. She said to him “Screw your courage to the sticking place” (1.7.60). Because Lady Macbeth manages to drive Macbeth to Duncan’s death, this shows viewers that Lady Macbeths own ambition is the real driving force behind most of Macbeth’s actions, because of his strong dedicated love for her.

She the woman of the house. She’s an example of a woman that most women wish they could be. Lady Macbeth convincing attempts to rejects her feminine sensibility and adopt a male mentally because she feels that the ones around her, think females should be weak. Lady Macbeth feels all women should be strong. Lady Macbeth is the type of woman that gives orders, instead of taking them. Lady Macbeth planned everything. She planned the murder, and how to poison the guards. However, Lady Macbeth does doubt the plan.

“Lady Macbeth tutors her husband in the arts of deceit” (Kemp 95). She tells him to “bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue: look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t” (Shakespeare I. v. 63-65). She also portrays the perfect hostess. Duncan praises Lady Macbeth for being an “honour’d hostess” and a “fair and noble hostess” (Shakespeare I. vi. 10, 24). She drugs the guards who protect Duncan’s bedchamber by bringing them tainted wine. Lady Macbeth, unable to kill Duncan because he resembles his father, has Macbeth to murder him instead. After the deed is done, Lady Macbeth plays to be distraught over the King’s death. Later, following the murders of Duncan and Banquo, Macbeth acknowledges his wife as hostess, and she welcomes the thanes who have gathered after being summoned to acknowledge Macbeth as their new king (Kemp 95).

People will say that she is just a good wife trying to go after happiness and joy with her husband. All she wanted was power and for him to be king. That did not work out well. Everything just turned against them. But, here is the weakness; Lady Macbeth and Macbeth both fell apart. After they did all that was wrong, they both felt guilt and did not stop thinking about it. Macbeth started having bad dreams and imagining things. Lady Macbeth started sleep walking and fell apart until she finally decided to take her own life. It did not turn out well for both of them. One can say she was trying to help and do well for her and her husband but that is not

On the contrary, Lady Macbeth begins as a ruthless woman. She has a manipulative and controlling character, convincing Macbeth to kill King Duncan; she will do anything to gain power. When she says, “How tender ‘tis to love the babe…I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out” (I.vii. 55-58), she shows her ruthlessness and her “bad” ambition. In her “role reversal” with Macbeth, she gains somewhat of a conscience and realizes her guilt. When she tells him, “You must leave this” (III. ii. 35), she wants Macbeth to forget about his plan to murder Banquo’s family. She is very hesitant about committing another murder and does not want Macbeth to follow through with his plan.

The irony in the situation between Macbeth and his wife is extreme, because one would expect Macbeth to be the more immorally, determined character to have greater ambition, not his wife, who is expected to play the simplistic, encouraging wife. She is a little too encouraging, for example when Macbeth says, “Valuating ambition, which o’leaps itself and falls on the other-”

Lady Macbeth can be said to be one of Shakespeare's most famous and frightening female characters. She fulfills her role among the nobility and is well respected, like Macbeth. She is loving, yet very determined that her husband will be king. At the beginning of the play, when she is first seen, she is already plotting the murder of Duncan, showing more strength, ruthlessness, and ambition than Macbeth. She lusts after power and position and then pressures her husband into killing Duncan. Upon receiving the letter with the witches' prophecies from her husband, she begins to think and knowing that Macbeth lacks the courage for something like this, she calls upon the forces of evil to help her do what must be

Lady Macbeth comes off as one of the most oblique, yet determined characters in the play. She had her mind set on helping her husband conciliate the throne and encourages him to pursue his dreams of being crowned as the king. When his weaknesses appeared she remained firm and made Macbeth’s goals her own ambitions. Things do seem a bit outrageous at that particular moment where Lady Macbeth explains to Macbeth how they should kill King Duncan but it shows not only the true love and devotion for her husband, but how she would stop at nothing until he gets what he wants.

Lady Macbeth is the wife of the main character, Macbeth in the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare. During

In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the true villain of the play as she is evil, ambitious and eventually insane. Lady Macbeth masterminded the idea to kill King Duncan and planted the vision into Macbeths mind, she convinced Macbeth to commit such a crime, and her love for her husband was eventually overruled by her determination and lust for power. Throughout the play she starts to show her true colours and the destructive force of her ambition, which inevitably results in nothing but disaster.