At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth appears to be manipulative, stronger, and more dominant than her husband. Although Macbeth states that he would like to take the throne, he needs support and persuasion which he gets from Lady Macbeth. She appears to be bolder than her husband, urging him to follow through with his plan to kill king Duncan:
Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'
Like the poor cat i' the adage?
Lady Macbeth's eloquence and passion reassured Macbeth that he should have no doubts, so after some hesitation, he commits the infamous deed and succeeds in taking the throne unlawfully.
Once Macbeth kills Duncan, he begins to turn inward, neglecting his wife and avoiding her consultation. He becomes obsessed with murdering anyone who could potentially rob him of his position as the king.
Lady Macbeth turns into an irrelevant figure and no longer possesses the strength she once had. As her husband begins to turn his back on her, Lady Macbeth becomes tormented by her own guilt for having encouraged her husband to get involved into evil acts (such as killing Duncan). In Act 5, her descent into madness is quite clear as we see her sleepwalking and hallucinating:
Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't...who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.
She believes that she cannot wash bloodstains from her hands, which is the result of her guilt-ridden conscience. She pressured Macbeth to murder Duncan, and the past has come back to haunt her. Her tragic death is imminent. After her death, Macbeth realizes how futile life is:
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
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