Shakespeare developed and flourished as a playwright from the late 1500s to his time of death in 1616. One of Shakespeare’s most famous plays is The Tragedy of Macbeth. Macbeth tells the story a man named Macbeth on his journey attempting to gain and keep the title of King of Scotland. The story shows the idea that a person’s ambitions can corrupt them and those around them. In the play, Macbeth is corrupted by the ambitions of his wife, Lady Macbeth, who is a instigator to him at the start of the story, but later is an mirror.
Lady Macbeth is an instigator to Macbeth at the beginning of the story primarily when she pushes him to act deceitfully towards the king in order for her ambition to be queen to be fulfilled. She tells Macbeth to “bear
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Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth’s manhood when he had doubts towards killing Duncan, saying “When you durst do it, then you were a man; and, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man”(1.5.46-48).When Lady Macbeth’s ambition to be queen begins to overpower her morals and her ability to see the wrongs of her actions, she becomes furious that Macbeth is not as driven to kill Duncan as she is. Lady Macbeth also acts as an instigator when she exclaims “I have given suck and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.” (1.5.55-60) to Macbeth, guilting and pushing him to murder Duncan. She insists that Macbeth promised that he would be king, and that he needs to kill Duncan in order to take the throne and fulfill his promise to her, because she would go to just as drastic of measures to fulfill a promise to him. Lady Macbeth’s instigation and ambition to be queen corrupts Macbeth and pushes him to kill