Lady Macbeth And Curley's Wife

2006 Words9 Pages
How do Shakespeare and Steinbeck present the characters of Lady Macbeth and Curley’s wife in Macbeth and Of Mice and Men? “Don’t you even look at that bitch” The play ‘Macbeth’ was written by the playwright William Shakespeare. The play involves Lady Macbeth, an infamous female character who exerts a great deal of influence over the events of the play and is one of the main protagonists in the plot to kill the king. In Act 1 Scene 5, Macbeth wrote a letter to Lady Macbeth detailing her of the events that occurred, including his new title. He has been promoted as the Thane of Cawdor and based on the witches’ prophecy; he is in line to become a King. The letter significantly reiterates the Witches’ prophecy of Act 1. Equally significant…show more content…
Having no ill-will toward the king, he is wavering in his resolve and to put it bluntly “getting cold feet”. The use of euphemism suggests that he is troubled by the thought of murder, and he is moral. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, thought otherwise. She showed her drive, determination and Macbeth’s lacking when she devised the plot to murder King Duncan. Lady Macbeth felt that her husband was a ‘coward’ and too full of “th’milk of human kindness” to take the required steps to make himself King. (Shakespeare 1.5. 15-20). Furthermore the quote also explicates that Lady Macbeth not only devised the plot but also minimised Macbeth’s actual involvement. Thus Lady Macbeth did not have faith that her husband would succeed the plan so she used her own greed and selfishness to do it for him. Which says on page 51 of the novel, “that with hath made them drunk hath made me bold: what hath quench’d them hath given me fire” (Shakespeare 2.1 1-2). This statement, more importantly, clearly illustrates that it was Lady Macbeth that had the direct motive to kill Duncan and she would have murdered him and completed the plot herself if he had not resembled her father. But she had to deal with the foolish toils of Macbeth who was basically a small pawn in her plot to gain wealth and

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