“Unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty: make thick my blood stop all access and passage to remorse.”
She asks the spirits to this as it is such an awful deed one that any normal woman could not commit. In the time of the Lady Macbeth it was believed that the kings were selected by god and killing a king was like committing a crime against God himself. Killing a king was regicide. This was why the deed was so dreadful and evil.
In the scenes leading up to the murder of Duncan, Lady Macbeth is truly “fiend-like” by being cunning and manipulative. As the awful deed draws closer Macbeth starts to wonder if they should be doing such an awful deed. The claims,
“We will proceed no further in this business”
Lady Macbeth quickly reacts by challenging his manhood.
“When you durst do it, then you were a man”
She then tells Macbeth the extreme measures that she go to if she had swore to him,
“I would, while it was still smiling in my face, have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash’d the brains out, had I sworn as you have done.”
Only a true “fiend” could make a statement of such wickedness. Eventually Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth into the murder once again and we realise there is certainly an element of truth in Malcolm’s claim.
Act 2 Scene 2 Lady Macbeth gave the guards a liquid which “made them drunk” Then Lady Macbeth waits for her husband. Once Macbeth enters he is distorted and we learn that he did not finish the job right. Lady Macbeth shows her strength by going and finishing the job and reassuring Macbeth all is well, she tells him,
“These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will make us mad.” This is ironic as this drives Lady Macbeth to suicide later in the play.
When the death of Duncan has been discovered Lady Macbeth pretends she knows nothing about the killing. She asks what is going on and faints when she sees Duncan’s body. Lady Macbeth will do anything not to get caught. Macbeth tries to cover up for the death of the guards, this fails. (quote)
Up until now Lady Macbeth has been the stronger out of the two. However the one who makes all the decisions in Act 3 Scene 1 is Macbeth, who plans for Banquo and Fleance to be killed without the help of Lady Macbeth. At the meal Lady Macbeth shows us that she is still the stronger of the two as she has to cover up for Macbeth as he starts to hallucinate and see the dead body of Banquo. “Thou canst not say I did it: never shake thy gorgy locks at me.” Macbeth nearly gives away his plan by saying this; however Lady Macbeth quickly covers up for Macbeth by saying, “He has taken these fits since he was a young boy.” She reveals herself as the calm; collected partner; reliable and steadfast in his hour of need.
This was the last time in the play that we see Lady Macbeth as stronger than Macbeth; from this point on Macbeth starts to move emotionally away from Lady Macbeth and finally becomes completely detached from her. For a large part of the play Lady Macbeth is not mentioned as Macbeth has gone off on a spiral of killing anyone or anything to try and keep the crown of Scotland. (quote)
The next occasion that we meet Lady Macbeth is Act 5 we see a drastic change that has came over Lady Macbeth. She is no longer the strong, cunning woman we know her as. Her guilt and separation emotionally from her husband has left her weak, lonely and completely isolated. (quote)
In Act 5 the doctor has been called to look after Lady Macbeth as she has been acting oddly in her sleep. Lady Macbeth now carries a light because the awful deed she did was done in the dark. Then she starts to rub her hands together. This is her imaging that there is still blood on her hands. (quote). This is ironic as she said earlier in the play,
“That I little water clear us of this deed.”
The doctor soon realises what the problem is,
“Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles.”
And he claims in a chilling fashion
“more needs she the divine than the physician.”
In Act 5 Scene 5 we see Lady Macbeth reaches her all time low. Lady Macbeth was so riddled with guilt and fear that she takes her own life. This is nothing like the Lady Macbeth that we first met who was the controlling and stronger than her husband but just moments before Lady Macbeth killed herself. Macbeth said
“I have almost forgot the taste of fear.”
Which is ironic as Lady Macbeth took her own life because of fear. These actions were not of a true “fiend-like queen.”