Lady Macbeth is also able to make decisions about murder easily and without a second thought. This is seen in her when she decides, without consent from her husband, which was seen in Elizabethan days as unacceptable, that her and Macbeth would commit an act of murder against the King, ‘’…That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan/Under my battlements…’’. Murdering the King in Elizabethan days and today is seen as even more unacceptable. Both things present her to the Elizabethan audience as an unnatural women and so therefore evil, and the contemporary audience murderous and so therefore evil.
Lady Macbeth’s striking quality is that she is able to influence her husband’s actions extremely easily, she is able to manipulate her husband by accusing him of not being manly and so she gains what she wants, this is seen first when she is able to force her husband into killing the King, ‘’…To-morrow, as he purposes…O never/Shall sun that morrow see!…We will speak further…Only look up clear;/To alter favour ever is to fear./Leave all the rest to me…’’. Lady Macbeth talks to Macbeth and says that they will commit the murder, but when he tries to disagree she stops him and tells him to leave it to her. This was a very uncommon sight in Elizabethan times, the female of a relationship influencing the male’s actions. Her manipulative qualities are again seen when Macbeth has second thoughts about the murder, ‘’…We will proceed no further in this business…Was the hope drunk,/Wherein you dress’d yourself?…And live a coward in thine own esteem…’’, Lady Macbeth accuses him of being a coward when Macbeth tries to tell her that they will not kill Duncan. By insulting his manhood she eventually influences him into going ahead with the act of regicide. She also manipulates him by telling him how she would murder her own child if she needed to,’’…and know/How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me:/I would, while it was smiling in my face,/Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,/And dash’d the brains out…’’. The harshness of the language she uses also indiacates that Lady Macbeth is fiend-like. The way in which she describes the murder of her own child is very graphic and distressing. Lady Macbeth is also able to lie easily, and deceive people. She is able to put on a smile even though she is about to commit a murder and this does not affect her conscience, ‘’…look like the innocent flower/But be the serpent under’t…’’. In this quote she explains to Macbeth how to hide his conscience. The language she uses here, for example ‘’serpent’’, which is related to evil also shows that she is truly evil herself.
Although Lady Macbeth is seen to be fiend like she also shown at points to be caring and ‘woman-like’. On the night of the murder of Duncan she admits to Macbeth that she could not kill Duncan as he resembled her father as he slept showing that she does have a conscience and guilt was getting to her, ‘’…Had he not resembled/My father as he slept, I had done’t…’’. This small outburst of good character from Lady Macbeth is short lived when she finds out that Macbeth has killed Duncan already and is feeling very guilty. When Macbeth examines the blood on his hands he feels a lot of guilt but Lady Macbeth shrugs it off, ‘’…This is a sorry sight…A foolish thought to say a sorry sight…’’. This shows her character to be very evil, it shows the audience that murdering comes naturally to her thus presenting her as fiend-like. She also says that washing there hands will clear their names of the crime, ‘’…A little water clears us of this deed…’’. She is also, without guilt, able to frame the guards showing her to be immensely cold-hearted and immoral, ‘’…They must lie there: go, carry them, and smear/The sleepy grooms with blood…I’ll go no more…Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead/Are but as pictures;…’’. Lady Macbeth tells her husband to take the daggers and frame the guards, he refuses as he is in shock and feeling guilt but Lady Macbeth shares a small part in their guilt and is able to quickly smear the guards with Duncan’s blood and so therefore frame them. This shows Lady Macbeth’s personality to be very unnatural.
From this point in the play the Lady Macbeth begins to seem less evil and fiend-like although the audience, now, and in Elizabethan times, would not completely forgive her for her actions or feel too much sympathy for her. In the banquet scene she is worried about her husband’s condition when he starts hallucinating, she tries to control him although this can be seen as selfish as she could have been trying to stop him from blowing her cover, ‘’…Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus…’’. In this quote she tries to calm the guests at the banquet and makes up a cover story about Macbeth’s hallucinations. This may show has less fiend-like as she tries to look after her husband which was traditionally the case in Elizabethan times. She also shows compassion and love towards her husband which are not normally regarded as common traits for fiends or villians.
In Act 5, scene 1, it is found out that Lady Macbeth has gone mad and is sleep-walking and reliving the night of the murder, she now feels the guilt horrifically, ‘’…Here’s the smell of blood still: all the perfumes/of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand…’’. She is sleep-walking and imagines the blood on her hands after the murder of Duncan. Lady Macbeth’s langauge now changes, she no longer speaks in iambic pentameter but now in prose suggesting that she no longer knows what she is talking about or she in no longer herself. The rhythm of Lady Macbeth’s speech dramatically changes to show panic, distress and lots of guilt which may have in many individual’s minds soften the blow of her fiend-likeness and evil actions.
Soon after Act 5, scene 1, Lady Macbeth dies, ‘’…The queen, my lord, is dead…’’. Lady Macbeth’s tragic death makes the audience of today feel sorry for her as ideas about going mad and death have changed dramatically since the 17th Century. Even more pity would have been felt when in the play Macbeth finds out about her death but his reaction is cold and he does not care about her death, ‘’…The queen, my lord, is dead…She should have died hereafter;/There would have been a time for such a word…’’. When Macbeth is told of her death he says she would have died at some other point in time in anyway. In Elizabethan times her death in the play would not have been met with as much sympathy as their beliefs were that crimes against nature and the forces of good were eventually met with a painful death. As Lady Macbeth went mad at the closing stages of the play it could suggest that she had a conscience and she was possessed by spirits she asked to fill her and so her character in the play might not have been her true self, but the evil spirits within her taking over her.
In conclusion, Lady Macbeth is portrayed by Shakespeare as a fiend, by today’s and Elizabethan standards. The main reasons for this are her schemes for the murder of Duncan, the way in which she felt no guilt after the murder and, to the Elizabethan audience, her unnaturalness and her un-femininity in the way she possesses confidence, bravery and ambition. She is also a fiend because of the way she is able to influence and manipulate her husband. How evil she really is depends on the context in which the audience looks at the play. If the audience were to look at the play from an Elizabethan viewpoint, Lady Macbeth would be the villain and the fiend of the play that eventually got what she deserved; death. If the audience looks at the play from a contemporary viewpoint it is much harder to decide whether or not she is truly fiend-like as she possesses attributes that should be common in women today such as ambition, confidence and bravery. As it is an Elizabethan play and therefore traditional ideas are present, these aspects lead to evil. Lady Macbeth is a fiend as she commits murder, lies, blackmails and manipulates her husband for her own gain. These acts are always wrong, evil and fiend-like no matter which context it is looked at from.
