She supported her husband and Macbeth trusted her very much. Because of this trust, Lady Macbeth was able to persuade Macbeth to murder King Duncan, thereby Macbeth assuming the position of king with Lady Macbeth his queen. Macbeth carried out this plot as he felt he was obliged to give Lady Macbeth some form of ‘compensation’ as he had been unable to sire a child with Lady Macbeth. Therefore the reason for Macbeth becoming king was not only his hunger for power but to also please Lady Macbeth. Macbeth’s motive for murdering King Duncan was possibly based upon pleasing his wife as much as Macbeth’s desire to assume power.
Lady Macbeth challenges him, saying that he is not a man. Macbeth becomes defensive, and to defend himself, he kills Duncan. So, in the end both are to blame. Macbeth had committed the actual murder, and Lady Macbeth made the plan and convinced her husband to commit the
Lady Macbeth manifests a misguided loyalty to her husband. Lady Macbeth loves her husband with a genuine if perverted fervour. In her obsession with the achievement of earthly power she calls on the powers of darkness to take her over body and soul. She believes that by doing this both of them will come to have ‘solely sovereign sway and masterdom.’ At the Banquet scene she makes a prodigious effort to remain loyal to her husband and shield his reputation before the lords of Scotland. It is also loyalty, which causes her to faint when the murdered body of Duncan is found in order to prevent Macbeth from exposing his fear before the others.
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.
She is a very loving wife, who would do anything for her husband. Lady Macbeth is ambitious and it showed when she was determined to kill the King for her husband to have the throne. When Macbeth had second guesses about the murder, Lady Macbeth questioned his love for her, and their relationship. She knew that he wouldn’t want to go through with the murder, so she manipulated him into getting back on track. “That made you break this enterprise to me?
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.
It is evident that Macbeth was once good, or rather, more compassionate towards the beginning of the book. The way he talks to the King of Scotland (Duncan) in such a high honor and respect (“the service and the loyalty I owe, in doing it, pays itself” (Shakespeare 1.5.46)) is a fine example of this. However, Macbeth, easily seduced by women and the supernatural, was so overtaken by the witches’ prophecy about him becoming king and his wife’s impulse that he would have to kill to become king, becomes unable to think straight and instead becomes overwhelmed. In this state, Macbeth is taken advantage of by his wife, Lady Macbeth, who convinces him by questioning his manhood: “it is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness” (Macbeth 1.5.50). Ultimately, it is Macbeth’s wife, symbolic of temptation and evil, that is responsible for pulling out the monster of Macbeth.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth begins with Macbeth being of high nobility, strength, and bravery. Throughout the play, Macbeth will have a complete change in his reputation and personality all due to his cold-hearted wife, Lady Macbeth. Macbeth in Macbeth starts off being known as “worthy” and “brave” but as the play progresses, his attitude and reputation changes into a “tyrant” and hated by all. Macbeth starts off the play being referred to as a “noble partner” (1.3.57) by Banquo, Macbeth’s partner. Macbeth goes to see the three weird sisters, also known as the witches, and is told that he will be the “Thane of Glamis” as well as the “Thane of Cawdor" (1.3.51).
She is loving to her husband but at the same time very ambitious, as shown by her immediate determination for Macbeth to be king. This outcome will benefit her and her husband equally. She immediately concludes that "the fastest way" for Macbeth to become king is by murdering King Duncan. Lady Macbeth's immediate thoughts may make her appear as thoroughly irreligiously cold and ambitious, but this is not so. To prepare for what she feels must be done she calls on evil spirits to "stop up th' access and passage to remorse" in order to be relentless.
Once Macbeth tells his wife of the recent events she is convinced that macbeth should attain the position as king and although she fears macbeth is too full of "th' milk of human kindness" (1.5.15) she feels it must be done and is certain she will be able to convince Macbeth to take the steps neccesary. Lady Macbeth then summons evil spirits too "unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full, Of direst cruelty” (I.5.38–41) so that she may become crule enough to convince him. Now Macbeth is starting to think. The profecy, his wifes willingness to do anything for him to be crowned, and the arrival of king Duncan at his castle has got him procrastinating of the consequences and the good outcomes that the futur may hold for him if he were to kill Duncan. This is the first stage leading up to Macbeths madness.