Macbeth

How does Lady Macbeth change throughout the play?

Lady Macbeth mentally changes throughout the play

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L. Macbeth begins as the lady in charge of everything related to her husband. She wears the Elizabethan pants in this relationship,

"The raven himself is hoarse. That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan. Under my battlements."

Note she says her battlements and not her husband's. L. Macbeth goes on to convince her reluctant husband to "catch the nearest way" by stabbing Duncan about a hundred times. Still, as the play moves on, we begin to see cracks in L. Macbeth's alpha female performance. She is more affected by Duncan's murder than she lets on. Later, as Macbeth turns away from his wife to become a psycho murderer, L Macbeth descends into her own doubts and fears. She can't control her husband's public paranoia nor is she involved with any part of Macbeth's bloodlettings. She is alone in her isolation. She is reduced to sleepwalking and murmuring confessions to herself (and others). In the end she kills herself, her earlier acts of strength and defiance now simply the ravings of a naive weak woman.