Lady MacBeth

From the ways she acts and speaks, what can be said about the changing character of Lady Macbeth?

Lady Macbeth's character is one of complexity, slowly, but continuously changing throughout the play. What begins as a struggle for power and a longing to shred her femininity turns Lady Macbeth into what she fears the most becoming a guilt ridden weakling tormented by regret and remorse.

Introduction of Lady Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 5):

Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most famous and frightening female characters and we are introduced to her in Act 1.scene 5.

She has not yet been described by any other character and it is therefore very important that in this next scene she is established immediately, so the audience is in no doubt of what she is like. Shakespeare very cleverly uses a soliloquy (where a character speaks her mind a oud for everyone to hear) to define her character, this way the audience sees her personality and her true thoughts.

When Lady Macbeth is reading out aloud Macbeth’s letter, we realize that maybe they are both equal to each other and therefore a picture of a very powerful, ambitious and head-steady woman is drawn. We can see this in Paragraph one, line nine to ten: “...my dearest partner of greatness...”

If Lady Macbeth had of said this of herself, the audience may not have believed her because she could have wanted to be this to Macbeth, but because its Macbeth’s words declaring this written to his wife, the audience is left to think that it must be true. This is a dramatic technique called ‘character report’. This gives us another clue if this couple is equal or not. I believed that at this moment the audience is led to believe that they were very much equal to one another.

In Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy we are told through her words and language that she is a very ambitious woman also. The quotation I found best to show this was: “Shalt be...” Because this is said and written in the future tense, these two words can tell the audience that she is ambitious.

Lady Macbeth also repeats the words of the three ugly sisters: “Shalt be”, (the witches) and we could be led to believe that Lady Macbeth could be or has been a Witch before in the past.

To create a difference these two bits of text (Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy), Shakespeare has written Macbeth’s in prose, a simple common manner to speak and Lady Macbeth’s in Blank Verse, a more sophisticated and clever, quick way of also speaking (where each line has ten syllables). Here the audience now discovers that Lady Macbeth isn’t just a woman, but she is a very clever and rational woman. Where as Macbeth is not as clever or rational and maybe she could out-wit him if she had to?

In my opinion because Lady Macbeth is already plotting Duncan's murder, she is stronger, more ruthless, and more ambitious than her husband. She seems fully aware of this and knows that she will have to push Macbeth into committing murder. At one point, she wishes that she were not a woman so that she could do it herself. This theme of the relationship between gender and power is the key to Lady Macbeth's character: her husband implies that she is a masculine soul inhabiting a female body, which seems to link masculinity to ambition and violence.

Shakespeare, however, seems to use her, and the witches, to use female methods of achieving power that is, manipulation to further their male ambitions. Women, the play implies, can be as ambitious and cruel as men, yet laws deny them the means to pursue these ambitions on their own.

A messenger shortly enters after Lady Macbeth’s first soliloquy; he brings her the news that King Duncan would visit her and Macbeth’s home in order to celebrate their victory, that very night.

The messenger leaves and Lady Macbeth starts her second soliloquy. Just from the first sentence: “The raven himself is hoarse...”, the audience can definitely see a change in the way she speaks, still in ‘Blank verse’ but, no longer sane, I could even say she seems possessed with the thoughts of murder because of the symbol of ‘Death’ used also in the first sentence: “raven”.

The ‘raven’ in that time was believed to be a sign of murder and death, Lady Macbeth says that, “The raven himself is hoarse...”, this means that the raven has been croaking so much that he no longer has a voice in which this means that there will be a long list of murders to come. This gives the audience the feeling that what is going to happen is going to be very evil, evil enough to give the raven a sore throat.

The next paragraph has a series of sequences of invitations to the spirits to enter her and her home, using the word “Come...”, I feel that Lady Macbeth is not naturally evil and therefore needs to invite evil into her body, poisoning herself to murder. Come is said over and over again, this is called repetition. This gives the audience the feeling of her brewing evil inside her.

Also women in that time were not usually powerful, she uses a phrase that may lead the audience to think that she wants to feel like a man: in the words “...unsex me here” Lady Macbeth talks of wanting all of the cold blooded aspects of ‘manliness’ so she can kill King Duncan with no remorse - she sees herself as having these qualities more than her husband, and because of this, in a sense, wishes to shed her womanhood.

To give the feeling of excitement, Shakespeare has used various exclamation marks at the end of phrases, so that ...

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To give the feeling of excitement, Shakespeare has used various exclamation marks at the end of phrases, so that Lady Macbeth seems over-excited. Shakespeare has also used alliteration in the phrase: “murdering ministers”, this emphasizes the audience that Lady Macbeth is an angry and maybe even dangerous woman to trust.

Coming to the end of the paragraph, Lady Macbeth tells the audience that instead of her weak husband, she was to commit the murder for him: “That my keen knife...”

To help believe her she uses imagery of black, evil and darkness: ‘thick night’, ‘hell’, ‘blanket of the dark’.

After she is convinced that she is able to murder and that no, ‘compunctions visiting’s of nature’, would stop her, Macbeth finally arrives whilst his wife is still possessed and at this she point greets him.

In the next speeches we do see a slight change from the previous speeches said before. Whilst greeting her husband, Lady Macbeth thinks only of herself and selfishly doesn’t congratulate him. This tells us that this conversation with her husband is a mere continuation of her anger and confidence from the news of her husband’s success and King Duncan's visit. We can now see the ignition of her lust for power.

Macbeth then tells his wife that Duncan (the king) was to arrive later that night. Lady Macbeth asked almost immediately when he was to leave their manor, Macbeth replied, “To-morrow, as he purposes...”, Lady Macbeth rudely interrupts her husband contradicting him by saying: “O, never shall sun that morrow see!”.

At this point Macbeth realizes what his wife is getting to, but he doesn’t feel the same way as she, he was too true to his religion for such a thing and by the end of the speech he doesn’t seem very amused or happy.

During the second speech of Lady Macbeth whilst Macbeth is present, she tries to twist him into going with her plan.

She used codes, symbols and imperative sentences in her speech such as; ‘beguile’ (which means to trick); serpent (evil biblical animal) and ‘great business’ (euphemism, a word disguising the act of the murder), this tells us that she was a very sly, devious and clever woman.

Relating back to the way she spoke to Macbeth, as if he were a mere servant or child, this could mean that she had had problems of a maternal kind before, maybe she treated Macbeth this way because of some twisted maternal instinct.

This left me thinking that maybe she was holding back her feelings of the past and because of that she demonstrates this evil and hard-headed woman that at the moment seems to feel no emotion for anything besides what she wants. This made me feel a kind of sympathy for her in the way that she might have lost children in the past and therefore acts in the way she does with her husband.

Lady Macbeth’s last words in this scene, leaves the audience in total awe of her control over the situation and her husband.

Written in a plain, ordinary language, the audience can fully understand that she is going to affect the murder:

“Leave all the rest to me”. The audience is left with a huge impact as she leaves the scene with a cliffhanger, not knowing what is going to happen next, creates a lot of suspense in the audience. This scene has been the first scene in act one to leave the audience with so much action with so many different emotions from: hope and expectation, anger, unhappiness and intrigue.

At the end of Act1, Scene 5. we have met Lady Macbeth and we are now informed of her true personality and her dominating power over situations and the relationship with her husband.

In scene six Duncan enters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's castle. He comments pleasantly, the home of his friend and highest thane:
"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses."
The audience now feels sympathy (pathos) because they know something the King Duncan doesn't, this is called dramatic irony.
Moving swiftly through the scenes, by the end of scene seven Macbeth finds seven different reasons to why he shouldn't commit the murder, even if it were done well or quickly. We can already see the effect of the discussion with his wife has done to him.

We start to see Lady Macbeth's actions have a huge impact on Macbeth's character in the persuasion scene, as he later transforms from a decent being to an overly bitter creature. The cause of his alteration is due to the fact that Lady Macbeth is constantly oozing heartless information into his mind: "Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire?"

She unleashes the dark side of Macbeth and motivates him to become an evil and horrendous man. In various parts throughout the story we find that Lady Macbeth strives beyond limits to be converted into a bitter and sour woman. The audience is revolted by her horrific actions and although she may seem repugnant, she is an extremely talented actor. In her role, having a deceitful and convincing character is important.

Persuasion Scene (Act 2, Scene 1):

We are introduced to the persuasion scene, Act 2.scene 2 , with an anxious and frantic Lady Macbeth, wondering where her husband is for the king had already finished dining and was shortly to leave to his chambers, the perfect opportunity. We can see this because she asks and replies in very short sentences, which are a sign of her anger and anxiety.

“Macbeth: "Hath he asked for me?"
Lady Macbeth: "Know you not he has?"

These quotes show the anger of Lady Macbeth and also Macbeth's fear of her. Lady Macbeth’s next speech is full of insults and rhetorical questions, five to be exact. These questions help her to persuade Macbeth along with her insults and her emotional blackmail:
"From this time such I account thy love...", she is saying that from now on she knows what his love is worth, because if he loved her, he would do what she asked. As Lady Macbeth digs further into Macbeth's dignity and pride, he suddenly fights back, claiming his rights in the relationship, stating that he is the man that she repeatedly calls a coward and a weakling.
But knowing Lady Macbeth for the intelligent woman she is, she hits Macbeth back with a reverse psychology, twisting the truth, building his ego up instead of down as before:
“...you would be so much more than a man."
To touch that final brink of hope that Macbeth held onto so dearly, Lady Macbeth tortures his thoughts, comparing herself to him:

" I have given suck, and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me- I would , while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, and dashed his brains out, had I sworn as you have done."

This shocking imagery is so powerful that Macbeth gives in and shows his first signs of weakness and under total control of his wife.
After breaking him down, Lady Macbeth recites her detailed plan. In this speech she refers to words of alchemy; "...limbec..."; this could be another clue to her close relationship with the witches, if she ever had one and her so called ambition to be more than any other woman. In that certain time, the witches were the cause of mostly every problem in society, so we can definitely relate the witches to Lady Macbeth, in my opinion.
Macbeth, now convinced, believes that his wife is so powerful that only men-children could be born from such a manly woman:
"...undaunted mettle should only compose nothing but males."
This is a character report, which I have already mentioned and explained earlier in the essay.

"I am settled...", Macbeth has no further doubts and accepts his wife's wishes.

The Murder Scene (Act 2, Scene 2):

Act 2. Scene 2, Lady Macbeth creates the atmosphere by talking softly to herself about the murder and Macbeth whilst he is performing the deed. But, suddenly she hears a call from below. Thinking now that she and Macbeth had failed, her first signs of weakness appear on line twelve to thirteen:

“Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t.”

Maybe Lady Macbeth fabricated this excuse to cover the fact that she may have been scared of murdering Duncan because she had never killed before or maybe she didn’t want the blame of committing the crime. My view on this is not clear because I’m not sure what she felt when deciding finally not to kill and leave it up for Macbeth to finish.

After the knowledge that Macbeth had completed the deed, Lady Macbeth gently calms him down, changing her tone into a motherly nature, although ironically she predicts later on that they will both turn mad because of their advancing guilt. This could also lead us to the fact that she could have been a witch before because of her prophesying.

With Macbeth's defenses down before, it was an easy task for Lady Macbeth to influence Duncan's murder and make up an excuse as to why she could not do it herself. The guilt of Duncan's murder can be placed firmly on the head of Lady Macbeth.

Consequently, Macbeth doesn’t know how to act around the grieving soldiers and friends of Duncan, his guilt got to the best of him and he couldn’t help but give away what he had done. Luckily for him, Lady Macbeth is the true actress of the play and pretends to faint for the attention of the soldiers and distracting them from her husband’s stupidity: “Help me hence, ho!”

This shows her creativity and that she is very inventive.

In the next scene, Lady Macbeth exhibits her true emotions in her third soliloquy she is depressed, unhappy and even suicidal. Displayed in rhyming couplets, Shakespeare wanted the audience to know that this was the end of her happiness and her life. And it seems that even though she did not commit the murder physically, she did intend it to happen and she wanted it dearly, and now we can see the guilt creeping up on her as she says that it is safer to be dead than be in doubt of what you have.

“Nought’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.”

Lady Macbeth is stranger than ever when her role in her relationship with Macbeth is reversed, this is called (obviously) a role reversal. Macbeth seems to now feed off of his wife’s power; we can see this because of Lady Macbeth’s short weak sentences. Macbeth even seems to captivate her evil witch traits and shouts out the same words she had said earlier.

‘Raven’ is repeated again in the play, so that the audience has all the knowledge also to what is happening. At the end of this scene we are left with the knowledge that Macbeth is plotting the murder of his second victim, Banquo, through his words.

Banquet Scene (Act 3, Scene 4):

Macbeth, now crowned king, invites all the thanes and soldiers close to the throne to a dinner held at his castle. The next thing we know about the murder of ‘Banquo’ is when the first murderer enters the room and tells Macbeth that the deed had been done. After the first murderer leaves, Macbeth suddenly changes and loses control. When Lady Macbeth tries to calm down her manic husband that claims to see Banquo’s ghost, we can feel her anguish over the loss of their former relationship with Macbeth. For this moment Lady Macbeth gains her power and takes total control of the situation because of her husband’s break into madness. She belittles him once more: “Are you a man?”

When everyone is dismissed from the room and out of the castle, she is forceful, but unfortunately for her this is her last act of power, shown in an imperative sentence: “But go at once!”

In Act 3. Scene 4, Lady Macbeth regresses to her weak and pointless exhausted self. I feel that she may even be scared to say anything that might offend her husband. Startled by his attitude before, I think that Lady Macbeth is afraid of what Macbeth is capable of.

In the next act, act four, Lady Macbeth is absent because she has lost her power completely and has no further part to play; her words now mean nothing to Macbeth and they are no longer partners in crime.

At this point I feel a lot of sympathy for Lady Macbeth because I feel that she is a very misunderstood character and she is not to blame, the murder of Banquo or Macduff’s family, she had no part in this plan. Lady Macbeth was desperate to save her relationship and save her husband, she tried to lead her husband away from these thoughts but she did not succeed:

"How now my lord? Why do you keep alone, of sorriest fancies your companions making; using those thoughts which should indeed have died with them they think on? Things without regard: What's done is done."

Macbeth began to resent and feel threatened by Lady Macbeth; she knew him inside and out and she knew his weaknesses. By not returning to bed with his wife, Macbeth in my opinion purposefully hurts her. This is the starting point of Lady Macbeth's final descent into her progression to madness.

Madness Scene (Act 5):

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...", Sometimes tomorrow never comes and as for Lady Macbeth, tomorrow meant another day of inner torment and guilt. Even though the witches tempted Macbeth with the idea of becoming king, Lady Macbeth helped him to actually go through with the murder and therefore Lady Macbeth feels she is the one who should be guilty as charged. Lady Macbeth chose the crown of King and Queen over her honour and moreover, even though I think that Lady Macbeth is sorry for what she has done, I believe also that Lady Macbeth caused her own downfall. There were the witches who influenced her through Macbeth's letter and her own ego, but it was her choice to choose over salvation.

By the final act of Lady Macbeth, she has lost everything. Her husband has abandoned her and her world crumbles at her feet. Guilt and sorrow wrack her brain. She knows that she is partially responsible for Macbeth's increasing brutality and bloodlust. She is horrified that her husband now kills innocent women and children, Macduff’s to be precise. She could be next. This guilt, anxiety, and heartbreak drive her insane.

In this state, she turns to sleepwalking which reveals her guilt as she tries to rub the endless amount of blood on her hands in Act five, scene one:

“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!-One, two, why, then ‘tis time to do't... The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now? - What, will these hands never be clean?”

The mention of a spot could also be another clue to if she was really a witch or not, in Shakespearean times the spot was a sign of evil and anyone who had one was named a witch and killed soon after.

The secrets she has kept from the people around her bubble over in extreme panic attacks. Act Five, Scene One is entirely in prose, if you remember before, Lady Macbeth only ever spoke in blank verse and therefore I believe she has lost her rational power that she once had. The fact that Lady Macbeth has been driven insane by remorse proves that she is truly sorry for her part in the murder of Duncan and this wins my sympathy vote for her.

After Act Five, Scene One, Lady Macbeth disappears from the play. We only hear of her again from the Seyton who delivers the news of her death. The servants that find Lady Macbeth's body are horrified to see her dead; it was deeply saddening for them to see her like that. It is plain from this reaction that during Lady Macbeth's brief life, she earned respect and adoration from many of the people around her. But, Lady Macbeth's death is suspicious. It is highly possible that her husband, threatened by her knowledge and power over him, murdered her.

What happened to the power - happy woman that Lady Macbeth once was?

What was it that motivated this gradual, yet altogether drastic change in her character?

The answer, I believe, is that it was ambition that motivated her and ultimately destroyed her also. What Lady Macbeth and her husband wanted most in the world eventually strangled them with its power.

They are two of Shakespeare's many victims of the “ambition plague”, joining the ranks of Julius Ceasar in another play of Shakespeare; you could even say that Hitler, Bush and others also had this so called ambition plague. The real message here is not to place your ambitions over the rights and lives of other people; something people must have done quite a lot in Shakespeare's time. In today's society, Lady Macbeth would probably have been much happier. She would certainly feel less oppressed by her womanly attributes - she would have been able to seek as much power as she wanted without being hindered by her husband. Ambition ruining everything still is quite evident today, however. Countless numbers of people are ruined each day because of their own desires and wants.

Lady Macbeth’s role as a supporting wife at the start of the play exceeds the duties of a ‘normal’ wife. She is the Eve to Macbeth as he Adam to her and he is tempted, in this case to be king. Although Macbeth hints at the idea of taking the crown in his letter home, it is Lady Macbeth’s ruthless determination to make him king that persuaded him to murder Duncan. Did she do this in the interests of Macbeth or was it to fulfill her own ambition? I would argue that it was to fulfill her own ambition because she decided straight away that murder was the best option to take without any regard to guilt, in this view I have no sympathy for Lady Macbeth because it is a sign of her inner evilness. But, when she displayed her guilt, I believe that she was truly sorry for what she has done.

Overall, Lady Macbeth truly makes this play. Without her the play would decrease in interest and in tension. She is also someone that I think everyone has something in common with- the determination to want to reach a life goal.

Name: Kaya-Moon,

T.G: 316.