Lady Macbeth's Desperation For Power

Desperation for Power

For humans to have purpose in life, they need goals to work towards and obtain. The continuous cycle of following a path filled with goals and obstacles permits an individual to fulfill their life and create their own unique identity. Everyone chases and creates them in different ways. The play Macbeth by William Shakespeare demonstrates how Lady Macbeth chose to chase her goal. Throughout the play Macbeth had an opportunity to fulfill three prophecies permitting him to be the king of Scotland. Lady Macbeth took this as an opportunity for herself to rise to power. Desperation in the face of obtaining one’s goal for power leads to chaotic behavior, which ultimately results in self-destruction.

Initially, throughout

After hearing that her husband, Macbeth, had the opportunity to become king of Scotland, she herself was ready to do anything for the throne, including being stripped of her femininity. Lady Macbeth said: “That tends on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,/ (...) /And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,”. (Macbeth 1.5.44-51) In other words, she states that she wishes to be stripped of all of her feminine qualities, as well as later on asks to replace her breast milk with bile. Asking spirits to tend to her thoughts of murder and change her qualities demonstrates how she is willing to do absolutely anything to rise to power and become queen of Scotland. She does not care to know the consequences of these wishes, therefore making her very reckless to have stated them. Lady Macbeth also presented herself as a very manipulative character throughout the play. As the story evolves she manipulates Macbeth to fulfill the prophecies given so that they might rise to power and rule Scotland as king and queen. Her desperation to attain this goal leads her to call him many obsurd names such as a coward and lower him as a man so

By the end of the play Lady Macbeth became crazy and out of her right state of mind. Her gentlewoman and doctor started to voice concerns about her very odd behavior and discussed that she had a very serious disturbance in her nature. Lady Macbeth was guilt ridden and finally started to crumble. Duncan’s blood started to haunt her, the gentlewoman explained that she would be seen washing her hands for a quarter of an hour mumbling about getting all of the spots of blood off her hands. These actions prove that she was also trying to convince herself to not feel guilt after Duncan’s murder when talking to Macbeth because she was so desperate to wipe the murder off of her own hands. She had finally reached her goal for power and became queen, however her desperation to attain this led to her suicide. Her last words in the play were: “To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate; / come, come, come, come, give me your hand: what’s / done cannot be undone; to bed, to bed, to bed.” (Macbeth 5.1.61-63) This quote reveals that Lady Macbeth will pass away due to the repetition of the words “to bed”. Altogether, her death demonstrates a complete loss of power, further proving that her desperation to become queen of Scotland and chaotic behavior led to her