Lady macbeth characters traits3/16/2024 After Duncan's death and the flight of Malcolm and Donalbain, Macbeth reigns as king of Scotland until his death. Thereafter, he is compelled to commit further crimes in an attempt to cover his tracks and defy the three witches' prophecy. His initial crime is a product of opportunistic prophecies, a weakness of character, his "vaulting ambition," and certainly the influence of Lady Macbeth. But unlike Iago of Othello or Edmund of King Lear, Macbeth is not an explicitly malicious villain. At heart, Macbeth does not deserve the adjective "evil." To be sure, he commits regicide and eventually orders the death of women and children alike. Appropriately, the former Thane of Cawdor was a traitor to the crown who appeared loyal. As a reward for his valiant fighting, described in the opening scene, Macbeth is also named the Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is a general in the king's army and originally the Thane of Glamis. Such cunning, or shrewdness, allows for their successful return to the crown of Scotland. Malcolm also tests Macduff's loyalty whilst abroad by putting on dishonorable and corrupt airs. After Duncan's death, they fear for their lives rightly and both flee Scotland. Malcolm and Donalbain, Duncan's sonsĪlthough Malcolm and Donalbain seem to have inherited Duncan's fairness, both display a cunning that far surpasses their father. The historic Duncan, incidentally, was a young man when he was betrayed by his general Macbeth. Both before and after the regicide, it is Duncan's particularly virtuous nature that enhances Macbeth's sense of guilt. The character of Lady Macbeth is the guiding support to the character of Macbeth.A kindly and trusting older man, Duncan's unsuspecting nature leaves him open to Macbeth's betrayal. She finally confesses her crimes and her death shocks Macbeth into a realm in which he finally loses himself. The knowledge of misdeeds done by her husbands under her fast provocations disintegrates her psyche. Towards the last two acts in the play, her strength gives in, her ambition descends into guilt and further into madness and death. She has the faculty of power reserved for a man and when Macbeth questions his actions, she shouts, “ what beast wasn’t, then, that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man And to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.” She has an empowered sense to defy established authority, it is proved by the way she designs the murder of King Duncan without allowing any guilt or inhibition of fear. The sharp non-conformity in her character brings her very close in similarity to the three witches in the play. Her character is constantly trying to “ unsex” itself and she asks spirits for her blood to “ make thick” and “ stop up the access and passage to remorse.” In a very anti-mother way, she wants to stop having any feminine feelings and sensitivity. Her character tells us of the restraints imposed upon a female personality due to gender-based preconceptions. In a very conventional manner, she mocks the manhood of Macbeth which makes him override his moral hesitations. She is perhaps more ambitious and power-hungry than Macbeth and in order to be so she is full of single-minded cruelty too. The tools she employs is that of the female. In a very effective manner, she manipulates her husband out of calls of his conscience. In her own words, everything her husband lacks after the aid of fate and metaphysical forces, she makes it up with “ the valour of her tongue.” She suppresses everything traditionally aligned with femininity. She truly believes her husband will be crowned but she fears his nature which is “ full of the milk of human kindness.” She is equipped with the tools apt for acquiring power. She presents us the limitation which a woman faces who wants to achieve like a man in a culture fashioned after norms created by men for men. So, in her very first soliloquy, one can see her successfully describing the attributes of ambition normally reserved for a man and despairing over the fact. She is introduced to us in the play reading a letter from her husband who calls her his “ dearest partner of greatness.” It tells us of their successful partnership in life and love. In the play, Lady Macbeth is the wife of the protagonist Macbeth and one of the most powerful presences of a female character in literature.
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