A messenger then enters and brings good news for Lady Macbeth. He says that Duncan will come to a banquet at Macbeth’s castle. When Lady Macbeth is on her own she responds to this by saying, “That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan.” She then seems to ask god to make her cruel. For example, “ Fill me from the crown to the toe, top full of direst cruelty.” This shows that she isn’t naturally malicious because she is asking for cruelty as opposed to her already having it. When Macbeth enters and says that Duncan will leave tomorrow, Lady Macbeth then says, “O! never shall sun that morrow see.” This confirms that Lady Macbeth intends to kill him. She then says to Macbeth, “Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t.” This is Lady Macbeth persuading Macbeth to be ruthless and to be like a serpent underneath innocence.
In this scene you can see that Lady Macbeth is ruthless and will not stop at anything to be successful. Although she shows another side suggesting that she isn’t the naturally cruel or ruthless person that her other soliloquy’s made her look.
In act 5 scene 1 Lady Macbeth is very different to the twisted and conniving person that she was in act 1 scene 5. She enters the scene sleepwalking and there is a gentlewoman and a doctor already talking about what they should do. During this scene Lady Macbeth persistently talks about a spot on her hand. She appears to try and wipe this spot clean as she washes her hands. She seems to be very distressed about this spot, which signifies the blood that she got on her hands after Macbeth murdered Duncan. For example, when she says, “Out damned spot! Out I say!” This imaginary spot is caused by the guilt that Lady Macbeth is feeling over the murders. She then talks about Macduff’s wife, and what happened to her. Lady Macbeth then says, “No more o’that, my lord, no more o’that.” This is the exact opposite of what she was asking the lord to do in Act 1 Scene 5, where she asked “Fill me from the crown to the toe of direst cruelty.” She then gives a sign that she will never be able to get rid of her guilt, when she says, “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” She also makes reference to wanting to undo what she had done when she said, “will these hands ne’er be clean?” But when she exits the scene she says, “What’s done cannot be undone.”
This scene shows a much more vulnerable side to Lady Macbeth. Although she was sleepwalking it was her way of having a soliloquy, even though the doctor and the gentlewoman were there. This is like a soliloquy because she portrays her true feelings. Afterwards the doctor said that she didn’t need a doctor but she needed a priest. This suggests its not something wrong physical but there is something wrong spiritually.
Shakespeare used the gentlewoman and the doctor in this scene so there was someone to both introduce lady Macbeth and to witness what she was doing. The doctor is included to emphasise the fact that something is wrong with lady Macbeth spiritually and that there is nothing that anybody can do physically to heal her.
In response to Lady Macbeth’s downfall, a contemporary audience would blame witchcraft as the main cause. This is because during the reign of Elizabeth 1 beliefs in witches were a normal part of life. In act 5 scene 1 where Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking, a Shakespearean audience would think that she was possessed by a devil or a witch, which is causing her to do unusual things. They would also link this to the 3 witches that prophesise Macbeth becoming king.
Lady Macbeth’s relationship with the supernatural changes throughout the play. In act 1 scene 5 she seeks evilness and cruelty from the supernatural, but this then turns to being victimized by the power of the supernatural. In act 1 scene 5 she says, “fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty.” She seems to think here that she is adding cruelty to herself, when she is really creating it. This then backfires on her and she ends up sleepwalking, in a scene which appears like she is walking through a room full of the people that she plotted to kill.
A modern audience would think that the downfall of lady Macbeth is due to guilt. This is because not many people believe in witchcraft nowadays and understand more about conscience.
In act 1 scene 5 Lady Macbeth uses persuasive language towards Macbeth and tries to persuade him to commit the murder. She uses very descriptive language and her imagination runs away with her. You can tell that her imagination runs away with her because of the use of commas and that there aren’t many full stops. These commas suggest that she always has something to say. Act 5 scene 1 is different though because she uses less lengthy sentences. For example, “Out damned spot! Out, I say!”
I feel sympathy towards Lady Macbeth, as although she was the main reason for Macbeth’s downfall, she was trying to be something that she wasn’t. I could tell this because she was much more vulnerable later on in the play. For example when Macbeth is seeing an image of Banquo, she seemed genuinely disgusted and horrified by his actions. She also seemed affected by what had happened by the fact that she was sleepwalking, as that is a sign of guilt. The reason why she is trying to wipe her hands is because she wants to wash her hands of the guilt. The wiping of her hands also signifies the blood that she got on her hand while she retrieved the murder weapon.
In conclusion I have seen that although she has been an authority icon for Macbeth throughout the first act of the play, she never seemed to bear the traits of being evil and that it was just a mask that would come off later on in the play.
At the start of the play lady Macbeth is seen as a dominant, heartless person who had the ambition for herself to become queen and her husband to become king. This was completely the opposite to the weak and unstable condition which she revealed at the end of the play. Her persuasive effect on Macbeth convinces him that he has the composure and nerve to go through with the murder. This is where she is determined to be stronger than him and make it seem that murder is the right way of becoming king. But this all goes wrong when Macbeth becomes a crude and calculated murderer and ends up plotting the murder of Banquo and Macduff’s family. This spun him in to his own guilt filled world, which caused him to act strangely on many occasions. This is when lady Macbeth realises what she has done and is filled with guilt and horror as she had not only had killed many people, but she also ended up ruining the life of her husband. This feeling of guilt envelopes her and leads to her suicide and her husband’s death.
Her death is due to both the unhealthy involvement in the supernatural, which a contemporary audience would have related with, and the evil person that she clearly invented for herself rather than inherited.
