Lady Macbeth's Path To Destruction

Lady Macbeth's Path to Destruction There is a common theme in William Shakespeare’s plays of characters taking their own lives. We see this tragic event in his works of Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Macbeth. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, we see this theme when Lady Macbeth takes her own life at the end of the play. Lady Macbeth begins as a strong woman eager to have Macbeth murder the king and we see her start to spiral downward when Macbeth breaks her original plan. As we move throughout the play, we see her change from this strong, courageous woman to a woman who apparently takes her own life. In the beginning of the play, while Lady Macbeth is very power hungry and wants the king murdered, she demonstrates traits of strength and manliness. She wants Macbeth to get to her level and murder the king. Lady Macbeth fears her husband will be to weak to murder Duncan, so she calls upon the

She changes from that strong and courageous woman to a woman who takes her own life. We truly see her show that she is actually very guilty for all that she has done. As she sleepwalks she says aloud, “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” (5.1.51-53). By this she means, she has brought to much harm and nothing can fix all she has done. She went from a woman who was very eager to help commit murder to a weak woman who can’t get over all she has done. This leads to her believing there is no way out and she will never be forgiven. William Shakespeare ends the play with Malcolm speaking and he says, “Who, as ‘tis thought, by self and violent hands,/ Took off her life” (5.8.83-84). Thus revealing Lady Macbeth could not take it any longer and she thought all she could do now was take her own life. It is crazy to think how in such little time one could go from being power hungry and ready to kill to a person who feels their is no way out and takes their own