Examine how Shakespeare introduces the character of Lady Macbeth to an audience, paying particular attention to the impact made by the language. Assess how this impression is created in at least one production of the play.

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Examine how Shakespeare introduces the character of Lady Macbeth to an audience, paying particular attention to the impact made by the language. Assess how this impression is created in at least one production of the play.

Macbeth; one of Shakespeare’s great tragedies. Death, deceit, lies. Very hard to act well, very hard to understand, and many different interpretations, each varying slightly have been preformed. The character of Lady Macbeth is vital in the play and so the way she is interpreted is crucial, as it may well have a bearing on some of the other characters. Would Macbeth have killed Duncan that sets the next chain of events rolling, if Lady Macbeth had not been as persuasive?

As the language in the play is Shakespearian, and therefore difficult to understand, can she be deciphered as the main force behind Macbeth’s decision to kill Duncan, or is she just a building block to what Macbeth wanted? Therefore to understand her character, an understanding of her language is essential.

The 1976 version of Macbeth is one of the most successful versions of Macbeth ever performed. Starring Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth, Ian McKellen as Macbeth, and directed by Trevor Nunn, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and was made on a very small budget, so the acting must have been what made it so superb, or perhaps the interesting minimalist settings.

Lady Macbeth is introduced to the audience in Act 1 scene 5, or ‘the letter scene’. She is sitting on what appears to be a crate and is wearing a strange head-covering hat. She has a very homely, motherly look, or depending on your outlook she could be in league with the witches, as many directors have thought, as one of the witches wears a similar hat. Or again referring to one of her later lines it could be part of her call to “unsex me here” as her hair is covered. Her dress is black; an obvious hint at evilness, but it is not yet clear whether this Lady Macbeth is evil. Although at times when she is contemplating evil thoughts the shadows caused by the lighting makes shadows on her face creating a skull like look.

In her hand is the letter that Macbeth has sent her with all the information about his meeting with the witches, and their prophecies. Her eyes are wide with amazement and she seems absolutely captivated; as though she is reading it all for the first time, even though that cannot be true as it is very creased as if she has read it many times. She then crumples the letter up and recites from it, and as we know now that she has read it many times, so the realisation that Macbeth is now Thane of Cawdor, and these witches have already predicted true is realised; may they do it again and Macbeth become King? Her eyes give her away, she believes the witches enough to murder, they are wide and believing.

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Her speech becomes faster as she comes to this realisation, and her language shows that she is convincing herself that the best thing to do would be to make Macbeth realise his ambitions and to push him towards killing Duncan, because she says Macbeth “is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” She says to herself that the only way that it is possible to fulfil the last prediction of the witches is to fulfil it herself as Macbeth doesn’t have the mettle to do it,

“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be

What thou art ...

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