Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most famous and frightening female characters. When we first see her, she is already plotting Duncan's murder, and she is stronger, more ruthless, and more ambitious than her husband. She seems fully aware of this and knows that she will have to push Macbeth into committing murder. 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 the 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. Shakespeare, however, seems to use her, and the witches, to undercut Macbeth's idea that "undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males" (I.vii.73–74). These crafty women use female methods of achieving power that is, manipulation to further their supposedly male ambitions. Women, the play implies, can be as ambitious and cruel as men,......

Join Now to view the rest of this term paper!
Members: Login to view this research paper.

Title: Lady Mcbath
Approximate Word Count: 370
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)

With the Term Papers Lab Membership Pass, you get instant access to every essay on this site, including this essay on Lady Mcbath, for as long as you remain a member.

Other essays sites charge almost $100 for a single term paper. At Term Papers Lab, you can get instant access to over 100,000 research papers for as little as $29.95!