Freud, Psychoanalysis, and the Tragic Psyche of Lady Macbeth: A Psychoanalytic Literary Study

This work investigates the implementation psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud to the play Macbeth by Shakespeare, with focus to Lady Macbeth. The concepts of the repression, unconscious, and development of psychosexual, and the concepts of id, ego, and superego provide a route for exploring Lady Macbeth's psychological fall from ambition and manipulation into madness and guilt. This paper further considers the patriarchal framework and implications of gender and power dynamics in culture. By placing the character Lady Macbeth with the theory of Psychoanalysis, the paper reveals how her character represents the consequences of suppressed guilt, the conflict unresolved, and transgression of gender expectations.