Lady Macbeth goes through three stages: 1) Ambitiously supporting Macbeth's rise to power before Duncan's murder. 2) Withdrawing due to guilt after enabling Duncan's murder. 3) Sleepwalking and expressing her repressed conscience alone, showing her true fragile nature, before committing suicide. While initially taking on cruelty to help Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is ultimately revealed to possess morality, with her involvement making her a victim of her own devotion to her husband's ambition.

1. The Three Stages of
Lady Macbeth
Hannah Lenkey

2. Overview
1. Before Duncan’s murder
2. In the midst of Macbeth’s further
action
3. Her solitary state prior to her death.

3. Stage 1
“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be/What thou art
promised”(I.v.15-16).
•Seizing the opportunity to give the glory of kingship to her husband
•This presents the inclination that her involvement is not for her own self-gain, but
rather, her husband’s.
“Had he not resembled/my father as he slept, I had done't" (II.ii.12-
13).
•Duncan=threat
•Desire to replace him with Macbeth
•Oedipus struggle?

4. “Lady Macbeth is very devoted to her husband, and also very dependent
to him. …
she takes the leadership and assumes the demonic cruelty to keep her
husband away from pity and kindness. Actually, the CRUELTY IS NOT
THERE IN HER OWN NATURE; she assumes it to tackle the situation”
(Chowdhury 38).

5. What does this say about her
feminine qualities?

6. Stage 2
Disassociation
Struck with guilt, anxiety, and immobility, her
involvement significantly decreases.
Lady Macbeth had to suppress her morality, it
is undeniable that she does in fact possess it.

7. “critics did not deny Macbeth his deep
moral sense, noting at the same time his
ability to overcome his scruples, to
commit one atrocious deed after another,
and to live with guilty conscience”
(Sadowski 153).

8. Does this make her a victim?

9. Stage 3
• Sleepwalking scene = a solitary state in which her identity is
unhindered by external presences
• She is “removed from the inhibition and the censorship of
voluntary repression” (Rahman, Tajuddin 138).
• Uncensored femininity and morality

10. “We see the real Lady Macbeth when she is totally alone
–AWAY FROM HER HUSBAND. When Macbeth is busy
to secure his throne, then the burden of the past activities
comes heavily on her conscience. Now she loses her
mental balance; walks in her sleep; talks to herself;
washes her hand again and again and finally commits
suicide” (Chowdhury 39).

11. Her intense fragility, expressed in these three
stages, portrays a psyche that comprehensively
absorbs the facets of life and the tragedy of death.
She is unconditionally devoted to her husband’s
glory, and thus becomes a victim by her own
investment.