Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth lies, she plots, and she is an accomplice in murder. She is eventually taken over at the end of the play by her and guilt, followed by a gruesome offstage death. At the beginning of play she seems to be stronger than Macbeth, when she convinces him to kill Duncan. After the murdering begins, however, she falls victim to guilt and madness to an even greater degree than her husband. Her conscience affects her to such an extent that she eventually commits suicide. The disintegration of Lady Macbeth follows a different course than Macbeth. Macbeth is passive in his initial encounter with the evil in the form of the witches, and she is aggressive. Where Macbeth at first considers his doubts, Lady Macbeth is hasty and only thinks of her husband’s possible greatness.

After the murder, she tries to keep Macbeth from thinking about the deed too often and as too wrong. She says, “What's done is done.” Bu