Lady Macbeth Research Paper

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The rise of power and ambition one has will always result in disastrous events. In the tale of Macbeth, a brave Scottish general and his wife are thrown into a world of greed and ambition when they receive a prophecy that they will soon be crowned King and Queen of Cawdor. They fall into a murderous rampage and a psychotic state of mind in order to keep the throne for their own. In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth experiences an epiphany when she discovers the pursuit for power might not lead to contentment, but instead to destruction. Lady Macbeth is first introduced as a powerful and manipulative woman who will go to great lengths in order to get what she wants. When she first hears of Macbeth’s prophecy that he will be the next king of Cawdor, she immediately becomes consumed with the idea of power and decides that she needs to take matters into her own hands in order to make the prophecy come true.…show more content…
She begins to sleepwalk and cry out about the murders that she and her husband have caused. While rubbing her hands together as if she was washing off blood, she cries, “Out, damned spot! Out I say! ... Yet who would have thought the old man to have had/ so much blood in him?” (Mac. V. i. 28, 31-32) Lady Macbeth falls into a delusional state, full of paranoia and suspense, where she begins to sleepwalk and believe that the blood of their victims is literally on her hands which she cannot wash off. Her frantic state shows that she is slowly drifting into madness. It is hard to believe that the once ruthless and driven Lady Macbeth is now becoming psychotic as she allows guilt and paranoia to take over her mind. Later, the consequences of her and her husband’s actions catch up to her which causes her to take her own life. The great character of Lady Macbeth no longer represents the ambition of power, but instead the destruction of all it can

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