Macbeth's Personality Changes

As situations in life change, so might one’s personality. Furthermore, personality change could be triggered either by self-development, or traumatic events. Personality changes may also be caused by spending time with a different person; occasionally, people who spend enough time with each other may switch personalities. In Shakespeare's tragic play Macbeth, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth appear to swap personalities as the tragedy progresses. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is portrayed as loyal, brave, and a bit timid when it comes to making poor decisions. Lady Macbeth on the other hand, is shown to be cold, dominant, and willing to make any decision necessary to achieve power. Towards the end of the play, the audience may notice how Macbeth

In act one, Lady Macbeth has a cold demeanor and tells herself that she must be that way to achieve power (unsex me) Her dominant behavior, and hunger for power, pressures Macbeth into killing King Duncan for him to take the throne. In the second act, Lady Macbeth’s ambitious personality helps her to remain stable and calm, while Macbeth spirals into guilt and insanity. While she is steady through the murder plan and gaining the throne, Macbeth’s anxious behavior begins to change her. Moreover, she begins acting more doubtful due to having to attend to Macbeth’s erratic behavior. As Macbeth changes and becomes more ambitious akin to Lady Macbeth, she starts to act more identical to Macbeth. During the fourth act of Macbeth, all of Macbeth’s previous guilt transfers to her, and she becomes timid and irritable. Her actions become more erratic, as Macbeth previously was, and she begins to sleepwalk and sleeptalk. The guilt takes a toll on Lady Macbeth and causes her to speak about the murder and about not being able to wash the blood from her hands, which reflects her previous self telling Macbeth to wash the blood off his hands after the murder of Duncan (insert a quote.) Lady Macbeth brings concern to her doctor due to her recent erratic behavior, and while the doctor tells Macbeth, he does not seem to care. At the end of the play, Lady Macbeth’s

Macbeth’s heroic, loyal, and unconfident personality changed into a selfish, merciless, and more ambitious character, similar to Lady Macbeth from act one. King Duncan’s murder, the witches' prophecies, and Lady Macbeth’s cold influence greatly influenced and instigated Macbeth's change in character. Though he turned into a murderous and vain king, Macbeth’s heroic personality was still present as he fought for his life until the end of the play. Contrasting, Lady Macbeth’s personality switches from cold, ruthless, and ambitious to guilty, irritable, and hysterical, resembling Macbeth’s personality in the first act. Her fear of weakness, Macbeth’s anxious behavior, and guilt of the blood on her hands are attributions to why her personality changes throughout the play and what caused her ending. In Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth swapped personalities with each other until their lives both ended in