Lady Macbeth's Suicide Essay Example

In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is a very heavy character to pick apart. From being a loving wife with all that she ever wants to a person who commits suicide trying to escape from what she has created. Lady Macbeth’s mind is a massive tree, leading with branches that need to be explored. The branches that needs to be explored are her manipulation tactics, her own desire to change who she is in order to achieve something, her guilt showing her true self in her sleep, and her suicide. 

In her opening act, Lady Macbeth is clearly established to be the one in the relationship with the inflexibility of her own outward appearing will, compared to her husband.  (Rahman 128). When she first received Macbeth's letter telling of his prophecy, she immediately started scheming the murder of King Duncan with ruthless determination, while her doubtful husband was still apprehensive about her plotting. She understood that the only thing that was keeping him from being King was himself and his good nature. “What the witches could not do, Lady Macbeth did it easily,” (Rahman 138). Lady Macbeth slowly broke down her husband's mind and “manipulates him through a meticulous process of cruel and piercing emasculation…,“ (Thompson), relentlessly beating down his humanity and filling his head with evil ambitions. She completely influenced Macbeth into murdering someone he once loved dearly for a mere power grab that they were not prepared for. 

Before the murder of Duncan, she understood something devastating to their plot for blood, her own femininty and nature. Finally figuring out what to do, “she realizes her own inadequacy in required illness and cruelty,” (Severn 130), and prays to something evil to “unsex her'' - to change her nature radically, forming something inside her that blocks her femininity and guilt.  Later, during the commotion of “finding out” that King Duncan is dead, her own disillusionment and sinfulness begins to consume her and she faints. Muhmmad Rahman believes that this faint is very real because “outwardly she is very strong; inwardly she is very weak,” (Rahman 136). Though she had the power to manipulate Macbeth, her own manipulation of her own nature was a failure. Lady Macbeth fully understands the power dynamic of being a woman in the supernatural world of Macbeth. “The only way for a man to be successful .. is to take arms and end the life of another.” (Thompson) and she vividly knows that, along with her weaknesses. She knows of her weaknesses and still tries to put on a brave face but fails to do so. 

We see her weaknesses finally reveal themselves in the form of her sleepwalking. “The burden of the past activities comes heavily on her conscience,” (Rahman 137), she begins to lose her mental balance: talking to herself, sleepwalking, and trying to wash away her hands of the blood that she has shed as the manipulator of her husband. When she sleepwalks, “she unconsciously expresses many things which earlier she represses…, “ (Rahman 138) showing once again the dual personalities she has created. Inside she is still a loving wife with a heavy mental burden, on the outside she is a hard woman with an almost unbeatable will. Throughout the play, she has pushed through her goals, and only in her sleep does her true self have free reign, “washing” the blood and guilt away unsuccessfully (Thompson). This mental guilt that shows through while sleepwalking, finally is apparent after she commits suicide. 

The surprising suicide of Lady Macbeth came from a mental breakdown, fueled by guilt and lack of self. One of the leading causes for her breaking is “her own desire for some sort of power … for which she was completely unsuited.” (Thomas). Lady Macbeth got what she wanted, but was not prepared for the consequences on her mental state. Earlier in the story the manipulation  was her own inability to be in touch with herself, so she became someone else in order to feel secure. (Thompson) The consequences finally reach her mental state, “Lady Macbeth must punish and quietly remove herself from the reach of justice by taking her own life,” (Thompson). Lady Macbeth’s suicide was her own action to gain some sort of conscience for what she has done. The quiet death of the quiet manipulator. 

Lady Macbeth was one of Shakespeare’s most complex female characters, with her diminishing mental state and her faceless will. She managed to manipulate her loving husband into a mass murderer, without looking into the future for the reprecusisons. Later comprehending the actions that she committed, her guilt slowly starts to eat away at her, asking evil spirits to make her someone she is not. Lady Macbeth starts showing signs of mania and begins to sleepwalk, telling of what is really going on in her mind. Lady Macbeth’s suicide has many branches to explore, but the ulitmate outcome was she created was a dictator and a broken country.