Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth (c.1603–1607). She is the wife to the play's main character, Macbeth, a Scottish nobleman. After talking him into killing the king, she becomes Queen of Scotland. Later, she feels bad about her part in the crime and falls sleepwalking. She dies off-stage in the last act. This is thought to be suicide.
The idea for the character came from Kings Duff and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of Britain familiar to Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth appears to be made up of two personalities in Holinshed's work. These are Donwald's nagging, murderous wife in the account of King Duff and Macbeth's ambitious wife in the account of King Duncan.
More information
Lady Macbeth Media
A print of Lady Macbeth from Mrs. Anna Jameson's 1832 analysis of Shakespeare's heroines, Characteristics of Women
Gabriel von Max's depiction of Lady Macbeth.
Related pages
Other websites
- Macbeth: Folio Version Archived 2009-01-14 at the Wayback Machine
- Macbeth: Full-text online Archived 2011-04-26 at the Wayback Machine
- List of all appearances and all mentions of Lady Macbeth in the play.