iii.67), proving that she is a strong and determined woman in charge of the situation. Lady Macbeth seems so strong and vicious that she talks of ridding herself of all her femininity. "Single-natured, she is even willing to lose the nature she has in order to accomplish her purpose" (Bloom). Lady Macbeth, in fact, says, "Come to my woman's breast / And take my milk for gall- ( I.v.38 -39). She is so determined to become queen that she says violent, repulsive things to prove it. She also mentions that she would "have plucked my nipple from his (a babe's) boneless gums / And dashed the brains out" (I.vii.57-58). "Moral distinctions do not in this exaltation exist for her; rather they are inverted: "good" means to her the crown and whatever is required to obtain it, "evil" whatever stands in the way of its attainment" (Bradley). Lady Macbeth put all her femininity and morals aside to keep her mind focused on the prize: the crown. However, "Lady Macbeth's strength is really the mock fortitude of a mind deluded by ambition" (Coleridge). .
As the guilt of Duncan's murder begins to catch up with Lady Macbeth, she progressively changes into an unstable, despairing person. The first sign of Lady Macbeth's change was when she tells Macbeth that she cannot kill Duncan. She comes up with a poor excuse for why she is unable to commit the murder herself. "Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had done't" (II.ii.13 -14). Lady Macbeth wasn't as strong as seemed to be because she backed down to kill Duncan herself. Instead she persuaded her husband do the dirty deed himself. In Act III, scene two, Lady Macbeth finally starts showing her degradation into a unstable, grieving person. "She now realizes that, "Naught's had, all's spent, / Where our desire is got without content: / "Tis safer, to be that which we destroy, / Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy" (III.ii.8-11)" (Davidson).
