Aside from the obvious lack of female characters present in Macbeth, the female characters that appear in the play, die in an undignified way. Lady Macbeth appeared overwhelmed with her own guilt and decided to kill herself to alleviate that grief. Suicide in the eleventh century signified a felony and seen as abhorrent. Lady Macduff, before murdered by a group of men, acquires only a small role in this play. She seems unaware of her husband’s disappearance; distraught and discontented, she refuses to listen to the messenger that warns her and her son of their fate. Lady Macduff says right before her ensuing death, “Do I put up that womanly defense,/To say I have done no harm?” (Shakespeare 4.2.73-74). She reciprocates to the messenger that
