Thou wouldst be great, art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it." said Lady Macbeth (I, V, Lines 15-20). Lady Macbeth is showing her ambition, she wants Macbeth to seize the throne and become a king. She is trying to convince her husband to start rising to power, even when such atrocious acts are involved. Lady Macbeth becomes fearful after the murder of Banquo (although she is not involved) from her guilt.
Upon reading her husbands letter, Lady Macbeth is too very ecstatic about their future. She tells Macbeth that “thy letters have transported me beyond/This ignorant present, and I feel now/The future in an instant” (I, v, 54-56). It’s revealed to the reader from the delicately chosen word, “transported,” that time, in an instant was stopped and Lady Macbeth was looking into their future. The reader can also glimpse a part of Lady Macbeth’s selfish character here. With just the mention of Macbeth being king, Lady Macbeth can see their future instantly, and is contemplating committing murder to get it.
1. DESCRIPTION OF LADY MACBETH Lady Macbeth is presented to the reader from her first appearance in the play as a woman fired by ambition. What Macbeth lacks in decisiveness, Lady Macbeth makes up for his lack of bloodthirsty lust for power and wealth. Swearing off her femininity at the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband powerfully to follow through with his plans to kill Duncan. After the act of regicide, it is Lady Macbeth who has the soundness of mind to plant the incriminating evidence on Duncan's guards.
Lady Macbeth has just been thinking that her husband is too weak willed to seize what she sees as rightfully his, the throne of Scotland. When she hears that King Duncan will be staying in her home, she says: 'Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top--full of direst cruelty' (1.5). In other words, she longs to act like a 'man' and kill Duncan herself. Lady Macbeth goes as far as to invite demons, or spirits, to inhabit her, enabling her to commit this great evil
In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth while being filled with ambition, convinces her husband to kill the king. There are many atrocious crimes committed in the play, not least of all regicide, and the most guilty of all the characters is Lady Macbeth, husband to Lord Macbeth. Lady Macbeth may seem to the outside world to be innocent as a flower, but in fact she uses deception and persuasion to convince others to carry out her bidding. When her lackeys fail at their tasks, she is fully able to finish the deed for them. Near the end of the play she admits to her crimes, further solidifying her guilt.
However, once Lady Macbeth heard that her husband had been fortuned to be king in the future, her lust for greed, and selfishness drove her to insist that her husband take action immediately to seize the opportunity to become King of Scotland. Lady Macbeth believes that Macbeth is too soft, which can be seen by the use of the metaphor “It is too full o’the milk of human-kindness” (1, V, 15). This refers to the milk that a baby drinks, thus she compares Macbeth’s innocence to that of a baby. In turn, Lady Macbeth resolves that she must mislead Macbeth and provoke him to agree upon the murder of Duncan. Ultimately her apparent success comes about as she challenges his manhood during the discussion of murdering Duncan, “When you durst do it, then you were a man” (1, VII, 49).
* She knows immediately that murdering Duncan is the only way of quickly achieving her goal. When Macbeth brings further news that Duncan is actually coming to spend that night with them, it becomes clear that her role is to seize the moment and facilitate her husband's rise to kingship. Before the murder (Act 1, Scene 7) How does Lady Macbeth persuade her husband to kill Duncan when he does not want to? Lady Macbeth uses different methods to persuade Macbeth to change his mind. Which one really affected Macbeth?
Once I gave him the title of Cawdor, he so thoughtlessly believed in the witches' power and fell willingly under their spell. What an ignorant fool! Also responsible would have to be Lady Macbeth. Once she learns of the prophecy, she is all too ready for Macbeth to become king, no matter what evil deeds had to be done to ensure he would attain the throne, including the quickest route to the crown, my crown! Even when Macbeth does have second thoughts, Lady Macbeth is there, insulting his manhood and shaming him into action.
The truth is that many of these decisions that Macbeth makes or follows is based on what the witches told him. One example of this is when Lady Macbeth convinces him to kill Duncan in order to become king. She specifically says, “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be / What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature / … / That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, / and chastise with the valor of my tongue” (1.5.16-17, 27-28). In this quote Lady Macbeth is thinking about the witches prophecy and how she can make it come true.
An opportunist, she jumps on prospects as soon as they arise. When she receives Macbeth’s letter about the witches’ predictions, she immediately begins plotting Duncan’s murder, and calls upon dark spirits to “fill [her] from crown to toe top-full of direst cruelty” (1.5.49-50) to assist her in getting the job done. While most women would never dream of summoning evil to become queen, Lady Macbeth will do whatever it takes to achieve the power she yearns for. She easily squashes her husband’s doubts in their scheme by belittling his manliness, calling him “a coward in [his] own esteem” (1.7.47) and other demeaning names. This type of manipulation comes naturally to Lady Macbeth, as does an attitude of relentless determination.