At the beginning of the play, we see Lady Macbeth as the person who is assertive and bossy, urging Macbeth to fulfill his ambition of becoming king by murdering Duncan. She is the one who persuades him to follow through with his plan when Macbeth shows his confusion and diffidence. They support each other, and they want to fulfill their ambitions by leaning on each other at the most important moments. However, after king Duncan...
At the beginning of the play, we see Lady Macbeth as the person who is assertive and bossy, urging Macbeth to fulfill his ambition of becoming king by murdering Duncan. She is the one who persuades him to follow through with his plan when Macbeth shows his confusion and diffidence. They support each other, and they want to fulfill their ambitions by leaning on each other at the most important moments. However, after king Duncan is murdered, Macbeth begins to distance himself from his wife, and he becomes obsessed with protecting his status and getting rid of anyone who could threaten to overthrow him (such as Banquo). Macbeth's unrestrained ambition robs him of his inner peace and causes him to to irrevocably descend into irrationality:
Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
Macbeth's tragic downfall is the result of his uncontrolled ambition.
As for Lady Macbeth, we could see that her tragic downfall stems from the lack of her husband's care. Lady Macbeth becomes a mere shadow of her former self. In Act 5, we see that she has descended into madness as a result of her guilt-ridden conscience and lack of her husband's support. She was left alone to struggle with her inner demons and she seems defeated by them. Shortly after she dies, Macbeth realizes the futility of his actions and how meaningless his life has become:
Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
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