Lady Macbeth Character Traits

Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and frightening femalecharacters. When we first see her, she is already plotting Duncan’smurder, and she is stronger, more ruthless, and more ambitious thanher husband. She seems fully aware of this and knows that she willhave to push Macbeth into committing murder. At one point, she wishesthat she were not a woman so that she could do it herself. Thistheme of the relationship between gender and power is key to LadyMacbeth’s character: her husband implies that she is a masculinesoul inhabiting a female body, which seems to link masculinity toambition and violence. Shakespeare, however, seems to use her, andthe witches, to undercut Macbeth’s idea that “undaunted mettle shouldcompose / Nothing but males” (1.7.73–74).These crafty women use female methods of achievingpower—that is, manipulation—to further their supposedly male ambitions.Women, the play implies, can be as ambitious and cruel as men, yetsocial constraints deny them the means to pursue these ambitionson their own.

Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband with remarkable effectiveness,overriding all his objections; when he hesitates to murder, sherepeatedly questions his manhood until he feels that he must commitmurder to prove himself. Lady Macbeth’s remarkable strength of willpersists through the murder of the king—it is she who steadies herhusband’s nerves immediately after the crime has been perpetrated.Afterward, however, she begins a slow slide into madness—just asambition affects her more strongly than Macbeth before the crime,so does guilt plague her more strongly afterward. By the close ofthe play, she has been reduced to sleepwalking through the castle,desperately trying to wash away an invisible bloodstain. Once thesense of guilt comes home to roost, Lady Macbeth’s sensitivity becomesa weakness, and she is unable to cope. Significantly, she (apparently)kills herself, signaling her total inability to deal with the legacyof their crimes.

Most people think of Lady Macbeth as a strong, ambitious, ruthless character. She urges her husband to commit murder and sees herself as the more ruthless of the pair. She gives a rather nasty speech in which she asserts her willingness to murder.

Lady Macbeth Character Traits Chart

At one point, she wishes that she were not a woman so that she could do it herself. This theme of the relationship between gender and power is key to Lady Macbeth’s character: her husband implies that she is a masculine soul inhabiting a female body, which seems to link masculinity to ambition and violence.
Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most infamous female characters. Cunning and ambitious, Lady Macbeth is a major protagonist in the play, encouraging and helping Macbeth to carry out his bloody quest to become king. Without Lady Macbeth, her husband might never have ventured down the murderous path that leads to their ultimate downfall.

Lady Macbeth Character Traits

The first sign of weakness comes in Act II, Scene 2 when she says that she could not kill Duncan because he resembled her father. She explains, “Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t.” The other example of some weakness in Lady Macbeth’s character is in Act III, Scene 2 when she tries to comfort Macbeth by telling him not to worry about what he has done to Duncan and is about to do to Banquo. She tells him, “How now, my lord! Why do you keep alone, Of sorriest fancies your companions making, Using those thoughts which should indeed have died With them they think on? Things without all remedy Should be without regard: what’s done is done. Perhaps the most ironic change in Lady Macbeth’s character comes at the very end of the play. Throughout most of the first four acts of the play, she has been the strongest character, always leading Macbeth and pushing him to carry out their plot, but in Act V we begin to see that she wasn’t as strong as she had appeared. First, in Act V, Scene 1 we see a troubled Lady Macbeth who is sleepwalking. She seems to be very troubled by blood, presumably that of King Duncan. Some of the comments she makes are, “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”, “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?”, and “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” Later, we learn