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Examples Of Lady Macbeth's Sleepwalking

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Examples Of Lady Macbeth's Sleepwalking
Shakespeare’s Macbeth, tells the tale of a man, Macbeth, who rose to power after committing murder and his eventual downfall. In this story, Macbeth’s wife, Macbeth, is pushed Macbeth into killing King Duncan so that he can take the position of king. Lady Macbeth is soon painted to be an ambitious, but cruel woman. However, towards the end of the play, the audience’s view of Lady Macbeth is twisted, and her character is seen from a new perspective. In Macbeth, it is Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene that defines her character and showcases her psychological vulnerability. Lady Macbeth’s character is often perceived to be cruel and malicious. When learning about the words of the three witches Macbeth had encountered and a possibility of him …show more content…
She takes on the murder like it was a project she was born to execute. She called her own husband a coward and walked away when it was done. But something happened to her. It’s not that she didn’t have a conscience because, in the end, it was her conscience that provided her downfall: guilt. Lady Macbeth’s character is not an unfeeling, brutal murderer and mastermind. Rather, she is a dedicated wife, has a clever mind, and falls victim to human conscience in the end. George William Gerwig points out that the promise of kingship had no meaning to her, but she was so bold and driven for her husband (290). She wasn’t evil for evil’s sake but her husband’s sake. She’s clever and almost perfectly planned Duncan's murder. Nevertheless, The guilt and remorse ate at her night after night. To make matters worse, Robert Munro points out that Macbeth was driven away from her following the kingship, and it left her to go about that suffering alone (33). Gerwig also mentions in his analysis that she was alone in her suffering and had no outlet (292). That guilt that rendered her perfectly helpless and her mind as destroyed as the aftermath of a battle most likely killed her. It is a popular belief that Lady Macbeth committed suicide when she is declared to be dead in Act 5, Scene 5. Munro also went as far to say that the suicide happened in her sleep

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