People can be like chameleons. They may change themselves to fit the life situation in which they find themselves. In the play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth exhibits chameleon-like qualities. Lady Macbeth has a conscience in the beginning of the play, Macbeth, but once she reads the letter from Macbeth she learns about the killing of Duncan, and her disposition changes to evil.
“The raven himself is hoarse… to cry hold, hold!” (I, V, 36-52) Lady Macbeth asks the gods to remove her female sexuality to allow evil to fill her inner self more completely. “What beast was’t then that made you break… who shall bear the guilt of our great quell?” (I, VII, 47-72) Lady Macbeth is consumed by the murder. She plots how Duncan is to die and corrupts Macbeth on changing his conscience. She tells him about the baby that they once had and died then tells him about how much that she would love to become Queen.
Macbeth is pulled into the evilness of Lady Macbeth’s soul. After the murder of Duncan, Lady Macbeth still possesses an evil attitude; but, of course, she wants to look innocent. Lady Macbeth is talking to herself after she has just killed the guards of Duncan. “That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold; … whether they live or die.” (II, II, 1-8) Lady Macbeth causes the men to drink to the point that Macbeth is able to kill Duncan. The alcohol she gives the men makes her even bolder in her desire to be a part of the murder.
“They meet me in the day of success; … to have thee crowed withal.” (I, V, 1-28) By the end of the play, Lady Macbeth’s guilty conscience emerges. Macbeth plans to kill Banque. He cannot tell Lady Macbeth because he knows that she has realized how she has become evil and is doing wrong to people that haven’t hurt her. “Where our desire is got without content… should be without regard: what’s done is done.” (III, II, 5-12) This passage illustrates Lady Macbeth talking about her feelings of guilt.
At the same time she sadly realizes that what is done is done and for her, there is no turning back. Since Lady Macbeth knows what she has done is absolutely wrong she talks to the spirits in privacy. “But in them natures copy’s not eterne… so, prithee, go with me.” (III, II, 38-56) Lady Macbeth is telling the spirits to put cruelty in her thick blood so that she feels the guilt and hurts.
At the end of the play Lady Macbeth goes hysterical. She replays the murder of Duncan while sleepwalking. A Doctor and a Gentlewoman are watching her talk in her sleep. “Yet here’s a spot. / Hark she speaks… to bed, to bed, to bed.” (V, I, 27-59) The Doctor and Gentlewoman are worried about Lady Macbeth and wish to make her better.
The next day Lady Macbeth has not awaken. “The queen, my lord, is dead.” (V, V, 16) Seton sadly tells Macbeth that Lady Macbeth has died. Shakespeare does not say how she dies in the play, however, Lady Macbeth was going through many rough times with the guilt from the murders and must not have known what to do anymore. Lady Macbeth changed from a tense innocent woman to an evil woman to benefit herself in becoming queen. Her changes show the qualities of a chameleon. The causes of her changes are to become Queen and rule.
Lady Macbeth eventually kills herself because she cannot put up with all the guilt, from the murders, running through her body.