| “ | 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. Make thick my blood. Stop up the access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between the effect and it! | „ |
| ~ Lady Macbeth summoning the courage to help Macbeth usurp the throne |
Lady Macbeth is the secondary antagonist of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. She is the scheming, power-hungry wife of Macbeth who conspires with him to usurp the throne of King Duncan of Scotland.
Overview[]
Lady Macbeth is the ambitious wife of Macbeth, a Scottish Thane (nobleman) and war hero. After he is appointed Thane of Cawdor after defeating and capturing the treasonous former holder of the title, she receives a letter from him describing how three witches prophesied to him that he would be king one day. She sees an opportunity for him to seize the throne by killing King Duncan.
They host Duncan at their estate, and she tells her husband to stab Duncan to death and frame his son and heir, Malcolm, so he can become king. He refuses at first, but she wears him down, first by promising him unlimited power, and then by questioning his manhood. After Macbeth kills Duncan and Malcolm flees the country, he becomes King of Scotland, with Lady Macbeth as his Queen.
Lady Macbeth grows increasingly wary of her husband as he becomes a tyrant, killing anyone he sees as a threat to his power, even his best friend Banquo. The final straw is when he orders the murder of Macduff, a Thane who rebels against his rule, but his assassins succeed only killing his wife and children.
While she had ruthless enough to conspire in regicide and treason, she is horrified and wracked with guilt to have been partially responsible for the murders of innocent women and children, and sinks into a deep depression. Her guilt and depression is so severe that she begins hallucinate that her hands are stained with the blood of her and Macbeth's victims, and scrubs her hands raw in a vain attempt to "clean" them. She finally decides that she cannot take it anymore, and commits suicide (offstage) by jumping off the turret of their castle to her death.
When Macbeth hears of her suicide, he is heartbroken but unsurprised, saying, "She should have died hereafter," meaning that she would have killed herself sooner or later, so intent was she on ending her misery. Macbeth himself is later killed in battle by Macduff, and Malcolm succeeds him as King,
External Links[]
- Lady Macbeth at Wikipedia
- Lady Macbeth at the Villains Wiki