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How Does Lady Macbeth Change Throughout The Play

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Lady Macbeth and her poorly timed realization

Macbeth, a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, is considered one of the playwright's most famous works. The play revolves around the protagonist Macbeth and starts off with Macbeth returning from a war. Macbeth feels as if the king had not rewarded him greatly enough and therefore develops a slight grudge in the sense that he feels he deserves the kingdom himself. This leads to his wife, Lady Macbeth, taking advantage of his ambition and convincing him to kill the king to take over the kingdom for himself which leads to catastrophe after catastrophes until the pair ultimately meets their demise. Lady Macbeth adds meaning by pushing Macbeth to embrace his ambitions which leads the play to its climax and also allows the reader to see the ultimate power of guilt. This is done through metaphors and foreshadowing.

Lady Macbeth is instrumental in pushing Macbeth to pursue his …show more content…

In Act 1, Scene 7, Lady Macbeth calls Macbeth a coward and compares him to a cat, “...And live a coward in thine own esteem, / Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’; / Like the poor cat I'th’adge?” (Shakespeare 1.7,43-45) The cat in this scenario is a cat wants to fish but is unwilling to wet its paws. The reason Lady Macbeth compares Macbeth to such a cat is because he has the ambition that he wants to become king but he does not want to carry out the act, so in a sense both the cat and Macbeth are unable to muster up the courage to get what they truly want. Therefore, Lady Macbeth's character adds meaning to the play through simile and metaphor by demonstrating how manipulation and charisma can lead many to follow dangerous and treacherous paths in which it was Macbeth who followed this

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