Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Lady Macbeth is perhaps one of Shakespeare’s most famous female characters. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth, she is depicted as stronger, more ruthless and more ambitious then her husband. She is power hungry and manipulative. Nearing the end of the play however, Lady Macbeth’s once hardened outer shell begins to crumble as guilt grasps her entire being. When Lady Macbeth first hears of her husbands prophecy of becoming king she states that she knows Macbeth is ambitious, but fears he is too full of "th'milk of human kindness" to take the steps necessary to make himself king (I.v.15). She quickly formulates a plan that ascertains her husbands place as king and accordingly, her place as queen. It is then she delivers a famous speech in which she pleads, "you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-f