"Ambition is the step that can turn a noble-hearted man into a sinner" is the message Shakespeare wanted to convey to the audience when he wrote the play Macbeth in 1606. Lady Macbeth's is the wife of an important nobleman: Macbeth, they are both characterized by their great ambition of becoming king and queen. Although she is a woman, her character is very important in the play because Lady Macbeth has a stronger personality than her husband, she knows how to manipulate him to obtain the death of the king and therefore the power she is longing for. Macbeth, obsessed and paranoid by his desire to be king, decides to murder Duncan. He betrays the cause he had been serving by committing several other murders without Lady Macbeth's encouragement, which will lead both of them to death: he will be killed by Macduff's sword and she will commit suicide, haunted by guilt.
[...] We see she is double faced: at the moment her husband arrives she does not seem possessed by evil any longer, Lady Macbeth simply is a wife very in love with her husband. But slowly she pushes her husband to commit regicide, by questioning his virility you a man?', we realize her ambition is far more important than her love for him. In this scene the roles are reversed because Lady Macbeth wants to influence him, like poison, and Macbeth is represented as someone pure and white like milk. [...]
[...] In Act Scene we first see Lady Macbeth's gentlewoman and a Doctor, in Lady Macbeth's room, near 2:00 am two' the bell ringing) as in Act scene 2. Her gentlewoman states that Lady Macbeth is constantly sleeping but sometimes walks and talks in her sleep, she refuses to tell to the doctor what she is saying in her sleep: ‘neither to you, nor to anyone, having no witness to confirm my speech', this supposes that it is something very important that could have disastrous consequences. [...]
[...] Through the changes in Lady Macbeth, the author tried to give a universal message about ambition, and about the disturbance of natural and divine order of things. Murdering a man was terrible, but killing a king was even worse, because they belonged to the divine chain of beings. In conclusion I believe Lady Macbeth's death is a lot more effective than her husband's because we feel very close to her in the sense that in act V scene 1 was more intimate; we feel pity for her because she realizes her errors. [...]
[...] Lady Macbeth changes so dramatically because she feels very guilty, she has lost her confidence, she feels betrayed by her husband who did not question her about the death of his companions and cannot control him or the events any longer. At the same time it sticks with the historical background because in the Shakespearean times people were very superstitious and the fact that she represented the devil was perfect to prevent the king from a regicide. At the time Shakespeare wrote the play, James I was the king of England, he believed he had divine powers, so he had got rid of the parliament and the people did not appreciate him. [...]
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