Essay On Lady Macbeth's Mental Illness

Improved Essays
Normally, the wives of kings would be rather sane and have no possible mental issues. Lady Macbeth on the other hand is one such case where a wife of a king has multiple possible mental issues or disorders. Lady Macbeth is the wife to the king Macbeth, who ruled during medieval times, or the eleventh century. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth were also characters of the famous Shakespearian play Macbeth, written in the year 1606. The main two mental disorders that Lady Macbeth has that has a constant supply of examples and proof is, Panic disorder and Paranoid Schizophrenia. Lady Macbeth has Panic disorder and paranoid schizophrenia because, she has interpreted reality abnormally, she has had the feelings of unreality or of being detached from oneself, has had an abnormal fear of losing control, and disorderly thinking and behavior. …show more content…
Lady Macbeth goes through multiple mood swings to help her husband, Macbeth, come into power. Lady Macbeth goes from sad to desperate to terrified all within a couple seconds. Lady Macbeth is happy for her husband at happy that her husband killed Duncan, the king before Macbeth took over, and then as soon as he said he couldn’t smear blood on his guards, she got furious and said she would do it herself. After Lady Macbeth does this, she talks to him softly as if she’s attempting to calm his mind from the murder he just committed and then immediately after went to concerned and said they should clean up. After all of this, Lady Macbeth is now afraid of her husband as he takes control. Macbeth refuses to tell his wife anything involving his plans for the future and what he plans to do to specific characters in the play. Lady Macbeth is utterly terrified of her husband at this point, and the moment he said lets go to bed, she just shrugged it off and went to sleep with him. It eventually reaches the point to where she hardly interacts with her husband after this

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    After reading her husband’s letter, Lady Macbeth is ambitious to make the witches’ prophecies come true. However, she fears that Macbeth is not ruthless enough to go through with killing Duncan. She explains in the quote, “Yet I do fear thy nature;/It is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness/ To catch the nearest way,” (Shakespeare, 31) that she rightly believes her husband too gentle and soft to do anything he can in order to become king. This reveals a lot about the power dynamic of their relationship.…

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally” (Smith). Schizophrenics experience symptoms such as extremely disorganized behavior, hallucinations, as well as delusions. The schizophrenic symptoms stated above are the very exact symptoms that Macbeth experiences. Hallucinations, disorganized behavior, as well as delusions are symptoms that can be seen throughout the play and connect very well with the schizophrenic mental disorder. Also, schizophrenia is a very broad topic and there are many mini subdivisions of schizophrenia, one being paranoid schizophrenia, where the schizophrenic person becomes very paranoid when an episode tends to happening.…

    • 917 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    the second thing that Macbeth did was tell his wife about the prophecies, when he wasn’t sure if he should kill Duncan. However, Lady Macbeth told him that he wasn’t being very manly and that he should kill Duncan, because that would mean that she then would be married to the King of Scotland. Looking at their relationship through the text, it is easily put together that Lady Macbeth was in charge of her husband 's actions until she started to go crazy. As the story developed, so did their lies and they started to drift apart. It came to the point that Macbeth didn’t even care that his wife committed suicide because he was so obsessed with the idea of being powerful.…

    • 2372 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lady Macbeth has a lot of medical issues for different reasons. I recounted a scene where she got a letter from her spouse, presenting the prediction that he would get to be above all else. Lady Macbeth uncovers that her quick considerations were dull, and primarily comprised of killing the present ruler, Duncan (Coloybell). These degenerate considerations hint at a bothered mental state and, by aftereffects of her taking of Goldberg's test; it has gotten to be obvious that she experiences overwhelming gloom. The reason for this misery is to a great extent obscure; it has taken months to try and draw near to examining early family existence with my patient.…

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Macbeth, three witches visit the successful general Macbeth, with the promise that he will be king. His wife, Lady Macbeth, then takes matters into her own hands by killing off King Duncan with Macbeth 's help. Eventually Macbeth grows just as ruthless as his wife and murders anyone he worries may challenge his position as king. However, their plan eventually backfires and the play ends with both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth’s deaths. Both books commonly explore the relationship of power between a man and a woman through reversing what is generally expected and how the quest for more power often leads to a character 's downfall.…

    • 1961 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Diagnosis Of Lady Macbeth

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Diagnose of lady Macbeth I diagnose lady Macbeth with post-traumatic stress disorder because of the symptoms that I found that describe her and the way she acts. Lady Macbeth show trouble concentrating because of the way she acts and in the movie look like she was scared and shaking. Lady Macbeth be feeling overwhelm because she acts like she doesn’t what she be doing. Then when lady Macbeth was trying to scrub off the blood from her hands and to take away the evidence. When lady Macbeth was sleep walking and didn’t even know it.…

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Assertive Lady Macbeth

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages

    When the story first has her in any of it, she is reading Macbeth’s letter and then is calling on some sort of spirits to make her a fierce woman. She then, with her new found strength, starts to plot the death of the king. When her husband comes home, she pushes him to kill the king. Macbeth was having second thoughts of killing the king, but no Lady Macbeth’s blood lust, most likely thanks to the spirits, Demons, took over and made him husband kill the king. She kind of has a redeeming moment when the blood on her hands causes her to not be able to live with her self and commits suicide.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the play, Lady Macbeth’s actions are a result of a presumed mental illness, societal gender roles force a dependency on Macbeth and define the couple’s relationship, and Macbeth is shown as more than just a cruel man and is capable of being compassionate. There are multiple instances where Lady Macbeth…

    • 1632 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In addition, Macbeth’s wife also displays a few odd actions. The main example being her sleepwalking and panicked speaking and movements during her sleepwalking. THis husband and wife couple both experience clear signs of mental instability after an extremely traumatic time in their…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Anger In Macbeth

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Looks While I was reading the play “Macbeth” I started to notice that Lady Macbeth is beginning to see that her husband Macbeth is getting to some extent agitated. Who is then exasperated seeing as her husband, was not being a man about the state of the circumstance. “Your constancy hath left you unattended.” Actions Seeing as though her own husband, Macbeth did not terminate the arrangement that was previously made between her and himself, which then caused Lady Macbeth to get extremely exasperated with him!! “Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead are but as pictures; ‘tis the eye of childhood.”…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    All around the world immoral decisions result in instability whether it be emotionally, mentally, or socially. In William Shakespeare's tragic play “Macbeth”, a brave army commander named Macbeth was greatly loyal to the King of Scotland, Duncan. As Macbeth battled for victory against the disloyal Thane of Cawdor, Macdonwald, he was looked upon as a mighty hero in Scotland. Three witches speak of three strange prophecies to Macbeth, and a co-commander of Duncan's army named Banquo. These three prophecies speak of Macbeth becoming King of Scotland which highly attract Macbeth, but Banquo refuses to believe in the temptation.…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lady Macbeth has a huge impact on Macbeth, “Consequently, if there is any change in Macbeth – and there certainly is -- it is because of his wife, not the weird sisters” (Ancona 3). They have a strong marriage because they rely on each other. Lady Macbeth truly loves her husband. “Lady Macbeth does not display sexual vanity and the play gives no hint that she is guilty of adultery” (Smuts 72). Stating that, Lady Macbeth would never commit adultery because her love for Macbeth is so great.…

    • 1077 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    She suggests that Macbeth sounds more like a woman imparting a scary dream to her friends at the fireside, rather than like a brave man. By emasculating Macbeth, she bends her proud husband to her will, as Macbeth could not endure being called womanly by his wife. Thus, Shakespeare gives Lady Macbeth the stereotypical female trait of being manipulative, while concurrently defying female stereotypes of the time, by giving her power, particularly over…

    • 1353 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    So with no access to remorse until later it reveals why Lady Macbeth is able to convince her husband and plan things so intensely. However, when all the deeds are done and the access to remorse opens again Lady Macbeth disappears into the margins of the play and becomes the weak, and enfeebled figure she herself would probably despise. When she learns that the king's dead body has been found, she faints and must be taken away from the room. In Act V, Lady Macbeth reduced to a figure, who sleepwalks, trying to wash imaginary blood from her hands, and talks of murder in her sleep. Anyone could easily read this as a kind of psychological breakdown.…

    • 1401 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, there’s a complete and utter deterioration of Macbeth’s relationship with his wife, Lady Macbeth, which can be seen through how they interact as the play progresses. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth hears a prophecy foretold by the Three Witches. After he hears this, he immediately writes a letter to his wife (which is read aloud by Lady Macbeth in Act I, Scene 5) and tells her what was happening and what the Witches told him regarding him having to kill King Duncan. He even adorns the letter with, “...my dearest partner of greatness.”…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays