In Act 1 Scene 5, Lady Macbeth is first seen. Her first speech is when she is reading a letter from Macbeth about what has happened with the witches, about their prophecies and how one has already come true. This really gets Lady Macbeth going, realising that if Macbeth is king she will be Queen and get all the luxuries that go with it. However. she is afraid that Macbeth does not have the strength and ruthlessness to be able to do anything bad, let alone kill to get the crown. She says, to herself in a soliloquy ‘I fear thy nature, it is too full of the milk of human kindness’. Therefore she decides on a method that she will use to make Macbeth get the crown, ‘I may pour spirits in thine ear and chastise with the valour of my tongue, all that impedes thee from the golden round.’ This means every time I think that you will not be able to get the crown I will bully you and force you into doing it. However, not content with just bullying Macbeth into doing what she wants, Lady Macbeth, who in the typical portrayal of a woman from the Stuart Times, wants the best for her husband and will do all she can to help him, calls upon evil spirits, ‘come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty.’. Lady Macbeth’s aim by doing this is that the fact she is a woman should be taken out of her, all of her womanly kindness should be disposed of and, in return, it should be replaced with ‘direst cruelty’. She also tells these spirits to ‘take her milk, for gall’. This is one of the only references in the play to a child that the Macbeths have had and is now dead. In addition it also symbolises her being rid of her womanhood. In this speech there are many references to death and destruction using words such as ‘raven’, ‘direst cruelty’, ‘murdering’, and ‘knife see not the wound it makes’. These all could be just to describe to the audience what sort of woman Lady Macbeth will be turned into or it might be trying to tell the shape of things to come. Also the ‘serpent’ and ‘flower’ image shows how deceitful Lady Macbeth has become when she tells Macbeth to be ‘like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under’ t’.
I consider Lady Macbeth to be a very pushy wife who, although she may try to make out that she wants the best for her husband, most of it would have been fuelled by her greed for the crown and power. She seems to be a bit of a control freak who, when she knows that she cannot be in control of Macbeth herself, as she feels her bullying and scornfulness will not work, she calls upon spirits to help her. I do not consider that a person who only wants well for her husband would go this far, if she does not want something out of it herself. I also consider that, with the spirits inside her, she will go as far as it takes to get the crown. She is driven on by her desire to power and her greed. I also think she will push Macbeth as far as he can go. This is very uncommon for a typical woman in the Elizabethan to Stuart times. As it is true a woman would want the best for her husband and try to do all she could, they would have also thought of the repercussions that could happen and how she would be accused. It has to be taken into consideration that the Bible’s theory that woman were the bad ones who tempted the men, which was derived from the Adam and Eve story, was still thought to be very true. Therefore, a wife would make sure that anything she would do would not seem like she was tempting her husband. Lady Macbeth is practically screaming this out. All people, not just the women, would have been God fearing and would definitely not have asked to be filled with sprits, which were the same rating as the devil. Therefore, I consider that women from that time would not be able to relate to her, but then maybe that was Shakespeare’s aim, to create a woman no one could sympathise with.
If I were directing a production of Macbeth, for Lady Macbeth’s first speech I would have her standing just left of the centre of the stage in a white dress. A white spotlight – to give the impression of good, kind, pure Lady Macbeth, would light her. She would be reading Macbeth’s letter in a kind voice, but when she talks of her will for power her voice would become more threatening, which would make the attendant step back from her in fear. The scene would be of a rich person’s room, maybe a bedroom, library or study, somewhere quiet. There would be gold and furs all over the room. This would all be well lit.
When she starts her second speech, the lights should be slowly dimming, going darker. Lady Macbeth would move to centre stage, shown in a deep red light. There would be smoke on the stage, covering her up to her waist. When she calls for the spirits, all the other lights would go out and only the light on Lady Macbeth would stay on. She would lift up her hands and her head when she offers herself to the spirits. While she is calling for them the smoke would increase more and more, until she is covered by it. Then all the lights would go out.
When time has been given for all of the smoke to clear, she would have changed to a black dress and appear more withdrawn. She would be sitting on a chair that would have been left on stage all the time, but not lit. Lady Macbeth would be trying to act as if nothing has happened, but would be unable to hide the fact. Macbeth would look at her strangely. He would be wondering how and why she has become so forceful, evil and deceitful. A white light, to show innocence compared to Lady Macbeth, would light Macbeth. He would also be standing away from Lady Macbeth, who would be sitting in the shadows at the side speaking in a menacing tone.
In Scene 5 we also see how the power has transferred from Macbeth, who as a man was obviously the head of the family and in charge, to Lady Macbeth. We can tell this because nearer to the end of the scene Macbeth’s speeches are much shorter than Lady Macbeth’s. This is a way Shakespeare often uses to show who is in control, the longer the speech, the more power the person has. This is the first time we see the effect that the spirits have upon Lady Macbeth. When she tells Macbeth of her plans to kill Duncan at the end of Act 1 Scene 5, she is told by Macbeth, ‘We will speak further.’ meaning, let’s speak later. Lady Macbeth still continues talking, showing that Macbeth no longer has complete control over her.
At the beginning of Act 1 Scene 7, Macbeth convinces himself that he should not kill Duncan. He feels that if he kills Duncan, it could backfire onto him. He says ‘bloody instructions which have been taught, return to plague the inventor.’ This implies Macbeth is afraid of what will happen to him if he kills Duncan. In addition to this he says he cannot kill Duncan because he is a good King with good virtues and he should go against the deed; ‘then as his host who should against his murder shut the door’, meaning I can not as a host do such a thing as kill a guest of mine. All of these reasons are spoken in Macbeth’s soliloquy where he gives four reasons not to kill Duncan and only one reason, his ambition and greed for power, to kill him. At the end of Macbeth’s soliloquy, he is resolute. Therefore, he has convinced himself that the reasons against the assassination outweigh the reasons for the assassination and he decides not to go through with it.
This is something that outrages Lady Macbeth, even though the reasons Macbeth gives her are extremely valid. He says Duncan ‘hath honoured me of late and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people’. Macbeth is saying here that Duncan has honoured him by giving him the title of ‘Thane of Cawdor’ and has made people think well of him. This is something Macbeth does not want to be ‘cast aside so soon’. Lady Macbeth, however (filled with the ‘direst cruelty’ of the spirit world) will not accept this.
Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth he is talking rubbish, calling him ‘green and pale’ implying she considers him to be a coward which she also calls him later in the scene. She asks Macbeth ’from this time such I account thy love’; meaning how can I love you when you go back on everything I say, what has made you like this? Lady Macbeth makes a good point to Macbeth, which is that he decides to be King, but is afraid to do anything to acquire it, calling him a ‘coward’ and attacking his manhood – saying any real man will do this, why won’t you are you a real man? This is all persuasive language on Lady Macbeth’s part. She is bullying Macbeth into thinking her way, telling him she has no respect for him and considers him not to be a man. Macbeth knows that the way to stop her doing this is to think her way, which is what he starts to do. Lady Macbeth has persuaded him.
She still pushes him, saying that if she had promised to ‘dashed the brains out’ of their dead baby, then she would and she would expect him to do the same – if he were a real man. This is good use of emotive language on her part and she uses good imagery to convince and mould Macbeth into what she wants. She is spurred on by evil. We can now see that she has acquired the power. She interjects massively when Macbeth asks her ‘if we should fail?’ Her reply is ‘we fail?’ telling him to get a grip. This shows she now holds the power in the conversation. She tells Macbeth what is going to happen and what he will do. This shocks Macbeth, but he is pleased saying ‘bring forth men children only for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males’ meaning you are too strong a woman to give birth to girls and should have boys which are much better. By the end of this scene, Lady Macbeth has convinced Macbeth to commit the assassination and Macbeth ends with ‘I am settled to this terrible feat’. Therefore Lady Macbeth has won the battle of wills with persuasive language and a controlling attitude.
In Act 2 Scene 2 we see Macbeth at his lowest morale yet. He has been forced by Lady Macbeth into committing the murder, which he does not want to do, but knows he must if he wants her to stop scorning and patronising him. Lady Macbeth considers herself to be extremely bold at this point in the play, saying’ That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold’. This means that the alcohol given to the kings grooms to make them drunk has just made her braver. She also knows that she is in control now, saying ‘That death and nature do contend about them, whether they live or die’. When Macbeth enters, we see that he is extremely afraid saying ‘I’m afraid they have awakened.’ This applies to the kings grooms. Macbeth is afraid that they could have woken and seen him commit ‘the deed’, as he con not bring himself to say the word murder. He is remorseful, saying what he left was ‘a sorry sight’. Lady Macbeth replies,’ A foolish thought to say a sorry sight.’ This also shows she is not afraid, and doesn’t really care that Duncan is dead. She even says that she would have killed him if ‘he had not resembled’ her father ‘as he slept’.
This, however, does nothing to comfort Macbeth. He is now getting extremely edgy, saying that one groom ‘cried Murder!’ as he slept. This shows that he is regretting what he has done. Lady Macbeth tries to comfort and steady him by saying that his ‘deeds must not be thought’ and telling him not to ‘unbend’ his ‘noble strength to think so brainsickly’. She says this when Macbeth is starting to worry, and fret, saying ‘sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep’. After a while of Macbeth feeling remorse and guilt for what he has done, Lady Macbeth decides that he has said enough about it. When he says that he is’ afraid to think what I have done:’, Lady Macbeth cuts him short from another long rambling guilt speech by telling him ‘give me the daggers’ which he has bought with him and forgot to place on the grooms. Lady Macbeth is again in control, telling Macbeth what should and will be done. She also tries her old tactics of attacking Macbeth personally, telling him she would ‘shame to wear a heart so white’. However, Macbeth is so distraught that these comments have little effect. Throughout the scene we see how Macbeth has deteriorated and is a nervous wreck. There is the opportunity for Lady Macbeth to try to get him to do a lot more than she wants if she would use another tactic other than bullying but, as she does not, she just demoralises Macbeth even further and she ends up having to do some of the work. It is obvious she does not want to do this. Maybe to make sure that she is in the clear, if she has not touched the daggers or been in the room, it cannot be proven she has had any part to play in the murder. Macbeth is of the idea that ‘all of Neptune’s great ocean’ could wash the blood off of his hands, another sign of guilt. Lady Macbeth is, by now, probably annoyed at Macbeth as she seems to think that an assassination is the same as killing someone on the battlefield. She starts to scorn him again, telling him ‘a little water clears us of this deed’, probably in the way a mother would talk to a five year old child.
In this scene Lady Macbeth has seized control of Macbeth when he was at his lowest. She has got him to do what she wants, ordering him around with the occasional bit of bullying to push him along. I consider that she could have got a lot further if she took advantage of Macbeth’s mood and stopped bullying and maybe used encouragement to get him to do, as she wants. This is where she has finally seized control from Macbeth and he never really gets it back. He never really gets a grip again, he goes on a killing spree going against his friends, becoming more two faced than even Lady Macbeth could have imagined. She has driven him off the rails.
In the early stages of the play, Macbeth has gone from kind, noble Macbeth into a quivering wreck, who cannot think for himself and needs his power crazed wife to think for him. He has been pushed off the edge and will never really be able to go back to normality. Macbeth’s downfall is partly due to the witches no matter how many spirits Lady Macbeth has had inside her. Macbeth’s downfall is mostly due to his fatal flaw, his ambition. He however has still got some of the loyalty and valour he has displayed at the start of the play. This is evident by the way he has found it extremely hard to commit the murder, he still tries to be how he used to be. Lady Macbeth, however, feels that this shows he is weak so bullies him into not thinking how he is used to. Lady Macbeth does not start his downfall. The witches do that by sparking off Macbeth’s ambition. She does, however, push and push him to get him to do as she wants and the only way to do that is to wear him down so much that he is too demoralised and upset to argue. This is a thing that she is really good at and she uses it a lot to acquire the power she needs which, with a woman like her, is all she can get. The witches are ultimately the power holders in the play. They have the power to make or break Macbeth and they chose the latter.
In conclusion, I consider that Lady Macbeth and the three witches have had equal parts to play in Macbeth’s downfall. The witches start him off by starting his ambition, but they do not force him into killing or grind him down. That is where Lady Macbeth comes in. She, however evil she may already be, fills herself with more evil making her easily the most evil and twisted person in the play. She is the one who forces him to kill and grinds him down. It could be said, however, that the witches could have entered Lady Macbeth as the spirits, so they could be fully responsible or they could have known that, by meddling with Macbeth’s ambition, they would have caused Lady Macbeth’s ambition to also be sparked off. It is hard to say who is fully responsible, as both groups of women have been responsible, but in different ways. What is definite though is that all through the early stages of this play the old Biblical Idea that women were are the ones responsible for the downfall and temptation of men has shone through.
