The Transformations of Lady Macbeth and Hamlet

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The Transformations of Lady Macbeth and Hamlet

In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, we experience a completely different Lady Macbeth at the beginning of the play, than we do as the play unfolds. Lady Macbeth is the perfect example of a character playing a dramatic role reversal. At the beginning of the play, her character was that of a strong, controlling wife, whose goal was to make her husband commit a murder in order to become king. Lady Macbeth ends up going crazy and having a nervous breakdown, eventually killing herself. Hamlet, on the other hand, is another one of Shakespeare’s tragic plays in which the main character, Hamlet, is faced with a similar situation. He saw the ghost of his father, and was greatly troubled by this. He is urged by the ghost to get even with his fathers’ murderer (the dead kings brother). Seeing the ghost not only changed his fate, but it also changed the person that he became at the end of the tragedy. The paths that Lady Macbeth and Hamlet pursued completely transformed the strength shown in their characters, weakening them, ultima...

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