How Is Lady Macbeth So Powerful

Lady Macbeth is Macbeth’s wife. She is considered to be one of the most powerful female characters in Shakespeare’s plays. In the beginning we immediately see her as the dominant one in the relationship between the two. When it comes to her looks and appearance she follows the feminine norm of her time. However, her personality seems more masculine, because she is so powerful, ambitious and violent in her way of thinking. As soon as she receives the letter from her husband, revolving the witches’ prophesies and their apparent truth, she starts planning the murder of Duncan. “When in swinish sleep Their drenchéd natures lies as in a death, What cannot you and I perfom upon Th’unguarded Duncan? What not put upon His spongy officers, who shall

This shows that she is the mastermind behind the planning of Duncan’s murder. This also displays how Lady Macbeth is the one that has the power over Macbeth and can be called a leader, a true sovereign. She knows how to manipulate her husband, so that he will commit the murderous actions that she wants. She is almost the opposite of her husband, because she is stronger, more ambitious, more determined, more ruthless and even lacks some humanity. She is very determined to become queen, to gain more power and a higher position, and that is why she pushes Macbeth to kill Duncan.

As Lady Macbeth continuously pressures and manipulates her husband by emphasizing his lack of courage, the way that he is “too full o’th’milk of human kindness” (Act 1, Scene 5, l. 15) and most importantly how he is unmanly. She manages to talk him down, to the point where he is pressured enough to finally kill Duncan. But after the