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Aspects of Character in William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”
But be
the serpent under it.
Her images in this speech strongly suggest her disordered personality.
When Macbeth and Lady Macbeth work together to consider the arrangements of King Duncan’s assassination, Lady Macbeth takes charge leaving Macbeth in the passenger seat. After the death of King Duncan, Macbeth losses his self-control being overwhelmed by guilt. Lady Macbeth keeps tranquil and again steers Macbeth towards evil.
But, Lady Macbeth falls out of the action. Later losing her sanity when she becomes tormented by guilt so severely that she commits suicide this suggests a terrible paradox as it suggests evidence of a moral sense deep within her. Such dreadful imagery of her insanity seems to suggest the defeat of evil and that right will out. This too appears in Macbeth’s death at the hands of MacDuff leading to a restoration of order.