Lady Macbeth gets blood on her hands after she and her husband, Macbeth, plot to murder King Duncan. In Act 2, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s play, she is complicit in the act and even takes charge during the moments following the crime.
Initially, Lady Macbeth is the mastermind behind the plan to kill Duncan and urges Macbeth to follow through with it. Once Duncan is murdered, Macbeth returns to their chamber with blood on his hands, feeling guilty and horrified by what they have done. Lady Macbeth scolds him for his weakness and takes matters into her own hands.
She takes the bloody daggers from Macbeth to plant them on Duncan’s guards, ensuring that they will be blamed for the murder. In this moment, Lady Macbeth physically handles the bloodied daggers, which symbolically signifies her involvement in the crime. After they are discovered, the blood becomes a symbol of guilt for both characters.
Throughout the remainder of the play, the imagery of blood haunts Lady Macbeth as her guilt manifests, culminating in her famous sleepwalking scene where she attempts to wash the imagined blood from her hands, exclaiming, ‘Out, damned spot!’ This underscores her deep-seated remorse and mental deterioration resulting from her actions.