Insanity And Psychopathy In Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth

The difference between insanity and psychopathy runs along a thin line. Insanity is an evil state of mind that takes over the mind and controls ones thoughts. Psychopathy is an uncontrollable disease ridden state that also controls the mind but is involuntary. The key idea to remember here is that someone who is a psychopath should not be deemed evil or insane, they have no control over the thoughts they have. Lady Macbeth exemplifies psychopathy because of her will to kill out of love, her power obsession, and her constant illogical plans with false hope in mind. Lady Macbeth has an immense will to kill and this is typically viewed as an evil trait but realistically, she only does this out of love for her husband. Macbeth loves his ruler and mentor, King Duncan, but he wants nothing more than to be king. As his wife, Lady Macbeth has the desire for her husband to happy and achieve his dreams. She is willing to do anything to help her husband and, blinded by love, goes through with the unspeakable acts of murder and deception. However, she should not be viewed as a villain, as she only performed these acts out of love. Lady Macbeth is a hero in a sense. She has the incredible determination to move up in the world and put her husband at the top. In her society, nothing means more than being a member of …show more content…
She is not a monster that chooses to kill people or constantly lie, it is just the only option that she feels she has. As Andrew Vachss describes in his essay, The Difference between "Sick" vs "Evil", sick is an uncontrolled state of mind that takes over the mind while being evil is a choice villains make. Lady Macbeth is sick with obsession and love rather than evil with sinful thoughts and plots. Because of the false hope given by the witches and the immense love she has for her husband, her mind is not in the right state and causes her to come up with the illogical plans that she and Macbeth