Within a very short time, Lady Macbeth has already begun to plan King Duncan’s “fatal entrance” to her home, Dunsinane Castle. She uses clever metaphors and double meanings when first introducing the idea of murder to Macbeth, such as “O never shall sun that morrow see,” and “look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.” These could have been used because announcing her plans directly may have made the suggestion sound much worse both to Macbeth, and to herself, or it may have been that she is simply being secretive with her words.
Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth proves herself to be a great actress. Having made her plans to murder Duncan, she again uses double meanings, producing dramatic irony for the audience, as they are aware of her plans and Duncan is not. She talks to her intended victim, describing that the honours of having him in her home are “deep and broad,” which could also be referring to the knife wounds that she intends for him to have after his murder. After the murder, she again shows her acting skills, when pretending to be innocent and shocked when she is told of the killing of the king, and later faints to distract attention from her husband before he is able to give them away. She is, in this way, clever, as she lets strangers see a pure and perfect wife of a hero, but in soliloquies and when in private with her husband, she shows an cruel, corrupt and yet loving woman.
The first cracks in her strong façade appear when she is talking about the murder. “Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t,” she says, showing that her original intention was to kill Duncan herself, but she was not quite evil enough to carry it out. Just a few lines before, she reveals that she had been drinking alcohol to give her power, which is another flaw in her apparent strength.
By Act 3, Lady Macbeth, who was once referred to by Macbeth as his “partner in greatness,” is beginning to fade from being the backbone of their relationship, to being lesser than her husband. Whereas before, Lady Macbeth was the one to persuade Macbeth to carry out the murders, he now plans murders without her knowledge. However, when Macbeth is imagining the ghost of the murdered Banquo, she still manages to stop him from telling their guests what has happened by quickly thinking of a lie to escape suspicion.
During Act 4, Lady Macbeth does not appear at all. Shakespeare may have done this to show the increasing distance between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. When she returns in Act 5, she is an emotional wreck. The gentlewoman knows that Lady Macbeth is letting out secrets that she should not tell when she says “She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that. Heaven knows what she has known.” However, by Lady Macbeth saying these words, Shakespeare shows us the fragile, remorseful soul of the woman that once was the driving force behind the murder of Duncan.
Shakespeare changes the writing style of this scene, using prose, rather than his usual iambic pentameter or blank verse. He also uses fragmented language and repetition for Lady Macbeth, to show that she is frantic, and speaking quickly. Lady Macbeth asks questions to herself, but in her mind it appears that she is asking questions to
Macbeth. This shows that she is reliving the past, and her previous “strong” conversations with Macbeth, but at the same time she also randomly changes her train of thought and talks to herself in an anxious way.
Act 5, Scene 1 is the last we see of Lady Macbeth, but just 4 short scenes later, she is dead. Some directors choose to show that she took her own life, but in his play, Shakespeare does not actually tell us whether she died naturally or by suicide. When Macbeth hears of her death, he does not move to see his “partner in greatness,” but simply says, “She should have died hereafter.” This could be taken either as that he no longer really cares and knew that she would die eventually, or as that he would rather that she die now rather than later. Whatever Shakespeare really meant, Macbeth shows a lack of feeling for his wife, but at the same time becomes deeply introverted and philosophical due to her death.
Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most fascinating characters. She shifts gradually from a strong, fearless woman to a weak, childlike ghost, yet all the time she shows overpowering feelings of love for her husband. Although she is not the main character in the play, without Lady Macbeth, Macbeth himself would not have committed the murder of Duncan and may never have been King. In this way she is also one of the most powerful characters Shakespeare created.
