Lady Macbeth is notorious for being power hungry. She is very vocal about her desires, and says she will do whatever it takes to get what she wants. Lady Macbeth wants nothing more than to be queen. In order to be queen, her husband, Macbeth, has to be the king of Scotland. Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to kill the king, so he can take the throne. She also covers up the murder and tries to get Macbeth to forget that it ever even happened. To keep herself, and her husband, on the throne, Macbeth has to kill other people, too. Not many people would kill to get what they want, and neither does Lady Macbeth; she gets her husband to her dirty work. Her intense ambition pushes her to be the mastermind behind Macbeth's murderous schemes. Lady Macbeth's ambition ultimately leads to her and her husband's deaths. Her ambition allows her to get what she most desires, but at what price?.
Lady Macbeth convinces her husband that he needs to kill King Duncan. When she receives a letter from Macbeth explaining how the witches told him he will be king, Lady Macbeth is excited, but worried. She does not think Macbeth has what it takes to be king. He is too kind and not aggressive enough, according to Lady Macbeth. She wants him to get home quickly so she can persuade him to take the crown. "Hie thee hither,/ That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,/And chastise with the valor of my tongue/ All that impedes thee from the golden round." Lady Macbeth's infamous unsex me speech shows how ambitious she is. She calls on spirits with murderous thoughts to make her less like a woman, and more like a man. "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!" (I, v) Not many women would want something so badly, that they would wish to be a man. Just like a man, she does not want to feel remorse. Back in Shakespeare's time, it was thought that only men are capable of murder and are filled with enough cruelty to do so.
