Lady Macbeth -

What do I see? Not a queen. Not a monster. Just a woman who loved her husband so much she unlearned every soft thing she was born with. And for what? He is a tyrant now, and he does not even look at me. He sends for the doctor, not for his wife. He plans his battles, not our future. I have become a footnote in my own catastrophe.

This speech is pivotal. It establishes her agency and her willingness to reject the social order. In the Jacobean era, women were associated with compassion, nurture, and softness. By asking to be "unsexed," she is asking to be stripped of her gender identity to become a vessel for ambition. She realizes that to commit murder—specifically the murder of a sleeping King—she must transcend her humanity. Lady Macbeth

Her tragedy is that she wanted to be a man to rule the world, but she remained a woman who could not escape her own heart. In the end, it is not the witches or the armies that defeat her—it is the memory of an old man’s blood on her hands. What do I see

: In her most famous scene, she calls upon spirits to "unsex" her, asking for her blood to be thickened and her remorse blocked so she can assist in the murder of King Duncan. Just a woman who loved her husband so