In Act I, Scene 5, we encounter Lady Macbeth reading her husband's account of the meeting with the witches. She immediately realizes she will have to push her husband, who she believes to be too "full of the milk of human kindness," into committing the murder she believes necessary to fulfill the witches' prophecy. She resolves to "unsex" herself and become cruel and remorseless in pursuit of this goal. At the end of the scene,...
In Act I, Scene 5, we encounter Lady Macbeth reading her husband's account of the meeting with the witches. She immediately realizes she will have to push her husband, who she believes to be too "full of the milk of human kindness," into committing the murder she believes necessary to fulfill the witches' prophecy. She resolves to "unsex" herself and become cruel and remorseless in pursuit of this goal. At the end of the scene, she exercises real and tangible power over her husband when she tells him to "leave the rest to me." She will come up with a plan by which they will murder Duncan, who is staying at their castle. Later, she plays the welcoming hostess to the King, and goads her husband to murder Duncan when he vacillates in Act I, Scene 7. When Macbeth thinks about postponing Duncan's murder, Lady Macbeth bitterly reproaches him, calling him a coward and questioning his masculinity. Later, she plants daggers on the King's guards and smears them with blood. Lady Macbeth is portrayed as a powerful, strong, and ruthless woman early in the play. She essentially controls her husband. By the final act, however, Lady Macbeth is a shadow of her former self. She becomes consumed by guilt, and dies with, as she believes, blood on her hands.
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