Bryce Hamilton Ms. Ratay English IV 10 March 2023 Character Analysis on Lady Macbeth In William Shakepears play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth undergoes a transformation from a ruthless woman, to a woman filled with despair due to her actions throughout the play. Specifically I will examine three parts to her character change that illustrate her evolution from an ambitious, manipulative figure in the beginning to an unstable, guilt ridden one in the end. Her character change is an interesting twist from good to bad, unlike how Macbeth's character changes. There is a reason for this change. In act 1 scene 5, Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a powerful woman who feels trapped within society's view of a female. It all begins when she is introduced to the play and Lady Macbeth reads a letter from her husband about his encounter with the witches. She fears that her husband is too much of a coward to catch the 'nearest way' of achieving the throne. She wants him to come home quickly so that she can pour her words of ambition into his ears. When we first see her in Act 1, she is already plotting Duncan's murder, and she is stronger, more ruthless, and more ambitious than her husband. She seems fully aware of this and knows that she will have to push Macbeth into committing …show more content…
This point is shown when she says “To bed, to bed. They're knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come. Give me your hand. What's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed”(165). She says this while sleepwalking, but this is the last we hear of her. Because shortly after, she slips into a depressive state she won't be able to escape. This reveals that she has come to the realization that there is no escaping the consequences of their actions. She felt as if there was no way she could correct her and her husband's sins. So she gets rid of them the only way she could. She commits suicide in hopes to finally be washed of her