Shakespeare's famous play, Macbeth, is the story of a man named Macbeth who kills the current king of Scotland, Duncan, to become king, and the aftermath of that event. Very few female characters are introduced within Macbeth. The first female characters are the three witches, who prophesy the entire play, and then Lady Macbeth, Macbeth's wife and the most important female character in the play. Both the witches and Lady Macbeth lead Macbeth to kill Duncan, but once he does, they find themselves unable to live with the consequences. Shakespeare purposely wrote the main female characters in this derogatory way so as to assert the idea that women cause ambition, ambition is bad, and therefore women are bad, but then shows that once they women make bad things happen, they can't deal with them. In Macbeth, Shakespeare documents his belief that women are not only deceitful and cause deadly ambition, but cannot resist the ramifications of that ambition once they are realized. Shakespeare argues through Macbeth that ambition is evil and women are the cause of ambition, so they must be evil too. The witches generate the idea of ​​ambition in Macbeth's mind, Lady Macbeth reaffirms that idea, and ambition leads to the downfall of both Macbeth and the kingdom as a whole. The witches, the first of very few women to appear in the play, plant the idea, or at least cement it in Macbeth's head, that he is destined to become king of Scotland. They first refer to him as the "Wheat of Glamis", something that is already true, then they predict two outcomes he has not yet experienced, calling him the "Wheat of Cawdor" and then saying that he "will be king henceforth" (1.3 . 50-53). When the second statement comes true and Macbeth becomes...... middle of paper... the only way he can escape the murder he has committed. She is haunted by her crimes because Shakespeare wants her to suffer for leading Macbeth astray, and even so she proves that when women make a mess, they don't know how to clean it up. The men end the play, solving all the problems created by the women: Macduff kills Macbeth, Malcolm becomes king, and Fleance will be next in line to the throne if the witches' prophecy continues to come true. Shakespeare asks men to solve the problem of ambition because he believes that women are not equipped to deal with their own problems. Perhaps he was scorned by a woman, or perhaps this is just how he sees members of the female gender, but he deliberately defines the actions of women in his work to show that women are weak and feeble individuals who lose all composure. when their actions lead to ruin.