Section 1
The way we learn about Lady Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 5 is the way she says her soliloquy and in that she decided the plan straight away. What we learn from this is that she is a very controlling and cunning person. Also when she is speaking she uses alliteration like she is about to cast some kind of spell. She shows some of her evil side in the ways that she speaks. Also she keeps repeating the witches prophecies, this shows that she is justifying her actions by never saying the plan is her own and always blaming the witches for everything she is planning and if she keeps repeating it, it will keep her and Macbeth on target and ‘keep the eye on the prize’ so eventually the will become king and queen. Lady Macbeth uses a lot of metaphors, these have an effect because she is making one thing seem better or worse and gives more emphasis and meaning to her words, which might be a way to convince Macbeth of her evil plan. The character of Lady Macbeth is very similar to the character of Beatrice in the play Much Ado About Nothing for example... both of them want to gain something after killing someone. Lady Macbeth wants riches and royalty and Beatrice wants justice for her cousin, Hero, after she has been shamed and slated on Claudio and Hero’s wedding day. Also both Lady Macbeth and Beatrice use very smart, cunning but persuasive ways to make their lovers do something for them. Lady Macbeth uses insults, verbal abuse, questioning and taunting his manliness but then uses flattery and reverse-psychology and Beatrice does the exact thing with Benedick by first bruising his manliness, then flattery and both of them use love to their own advantages and against everyone else. Also Lady Macbeth and Beatrice came from a patriarchal society where the position of women are thought to be in a lower status to men but Lady Macbeth and Beatrice are both very independent, strong woman and both are very passionate about their role as a woman. Lady Macbeth and Beatrice, both say in anger how they wish they were men. Lady Macbeth says “unsex me here and fill me from crown to the toe top full of direst cruelty” which her means that by making her a man she would have had power and control and wouldn’t need someone else to do her bidding and Beatrice says “O god, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market place” she is saying that if she became a man, she would kill Claudio herself. These are the ways that Beatrice and Lady Macbeth are similar and how we are shown how evil Lady Macbeth really is.
Section 2
In Act 1 Section 7, the way Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to commit the murder of Duncan, is by how she straight away comes up with a plan and she picks out the steps of the plan and already has all the details, and with the use of ‘I’ which shows her own ‘self confidence’ and the use of ‘you’ which shows her control and authority. Also she convinces him by saying “ I have given suck, and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that sucks 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 so sworn to do this”, this means that she would kill her own baby is she had promised to do so and she is willing to do anything to persuade Macbeth. The reasons she persuades him like this is because she is saying that he promised he would kill Duncan so she resorts to such evilness to persuade him. Lady Macbeth does this because she is a dangerous, evil, callous woman. This is especially ‘evil’ because maybe Lady Macbeth and Macbeth possibly had a child who died, so even she knows how it feels to ‘love’ a child. Lady Macbeth compares herself to Macbeth because she wants to be a man so she becomes strong. She convinces him and gives him a lot of encouraging remarks like ‘ we will not fail’ and ‘if you commit to something you will not fail’ and she refers to the witches a lot saying that if the witches prophesised it, it will come true. Lady Macbeth is both encouraging and abusive to Macbeth because she is nice to Macbeth, and then she insults him and bruises his ego and masculinity “was the hope drunk wherin you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since” and “live a coward in thine own esteem” she is using rhetorical questions and metaphor. Another way to convince Macbeth is by using verbal abuse (name calling) and calling him a coward and questioning and taunting his manliness and dignity. She also compares Macbeth to a cat, which hurts his pride “like the poor cat i’th’ adage”