Lady Macbeth

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Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, a tragedy written c. 1603–1607. As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads him into committing regicide, after which she becomes Queen of Scotland. Some regard her as becoming more powerful than Macbeth when she does this, because she is able to manipulate him into doing what she wants. After Macbeth becomes a murderous tyrant, she is driven to madness by guilt over their crimes and kills herself offstage. Lady Macbeth is a powerful presence in the play, particularly in the first two acts. Following the murder of King Duncan, however, her role in the plot diminishes. She becomes an uninvolved spectator to Macbeth's plotting and a nervous hostess at a banquet dominated by her husband's hallucinations. Her sleepwalking scene in the fifth act is a turning point in the play, and her line "Out, damned spot!" has become a phrase familiar to many speakers of the English language...

Read on Wikipedia · Image George Cattermole (1800 – 1868), Public domain