Subsequently in the play Lady Macbeth manoeuvres Macbeth to kill King Duncan using threats and accusations against him: ‘When you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were’ (A1 S7 Lines 49-50). But in this scene she uses flattery as well: ‘Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor’.
Also seeing, Lady Macbeth plans her plot in a shot space of time, as we learn that she is intellectual, showing how much knowledge she has. But in contrast she takes control of humans as well as the supernatural world: ‘This night’s great business into my dispatch’ (Line 67), showing that she is the man what Macbeth was destined to be. Lady Macbeth reveals the sickness embedded in her as she calls for the forces of evil: ‘Come you spirits; that tend on mortal thoughts!’.
But the question asked is ‘Why to some, is she referred to as a ‘friend-like queen?’
We realize that her technique of her language is very clever and manipulative yet deceiving to others; she has the ability to immediately switch focus: ‘What is your tidings?’ Also her anger at having no time to prepare: ‘Thou’rt mad to say it’. She has the flexibility to change tone, to the extent to flattering her Great Clamis! Her use of hard ‘c’ sounds in her second soliloquy as if the raven himself were speaking: ‘croaks’, ‘come’, ‘crown’, ‘cruelty’ etc. Also some literal words are constantly repeated to humour their importance to the meaning of the play. The repetition creates a dense texture words like: ‘Done’, ‘won’, ‘lost’, ‘fair’, ‘foul’. Perhaps Shakespeare creates this style intentionally so the audience may consider whether Lady Macbeth is evil by nature or nurture.
Showing great disparity Lady Macbeth wants her husband to hold the crown of Scotland, but why? Macbeth would hold the crown as the king of Scotland but her lower ranking wouldn’t benefit her. This shows her irony as she puts her ‘beloved’ husband on the line for treason but also wants the ‘Cawdor’ to retain a higher status of ‘king’. Her evilness may have rendered unnaturally, but maybe a use of a puppet towards the witches. Lady Macbeth could have been a key tool for the witches to make Macbeth apparitions come true so that he could also commit the ‘sin’.
With her deepest thoughts revealed through her language she shocks Macbeth and the audience. Once Lady Macbeth finished with what was said we see an affect on Macbeth, that he has doubts in killing Duncan, all this leading to how Lady Macbeth’s language was characterized towards him. Macbeth naturally was unsure of the ‘deed’ but with his wife’s evil morals her language proposed to him was convincing enough for him to commit the act.
Furthermore Lady Macbeth can become hypocritical as we learn in Act 1 Scene 6: her pure kindness to her ‘fair and noble hostess’ changes the whole atmosphere to what she had created from before. And despite the excitement of the occasion, her presence of mind to use coded language in case she is overheard: ‘To catch the nearest way’. Lady Macbeth’s hypocrite side may be argued that Shakespeare wrote this deliberately to show the audience proof of her madness, eligibly Lady Macbeth is not calculatedly perpetrating the action. With the use of her coded language with Macbeth a sight of her intellectuality is shown. But where was she taught to gain perfect knowledge of such things?
Her childhood may have been the place she picked up tricks, perhaps from her father who may have been the teacher of her true knowledge. Another assumption is that Lady Macbeth is naturally uneducated but she is able to read, as proofs are shown in the play (Macbeth’s letter). Or perhaps Lady Macbeth has been zapped by the witches to have the right requirements for being the true ‘Lady’ the witches may have wanted.
Her ‘unsex’ me speech shows her authority by hardly letting Macbeth speak and tells him that she shall be in charge of the murder: ‘And you shall put/This night’s great business into my dispatch’.
We mainly assume she takes control of the murder to make the so called warrior, Macbeth, pity himself. By Macbeth feeling this Lady Macbeth has ripped out the ‘warrior’ out of him and has claimed it herself. For Macbeth to re-claim his dearest property he must commit the regicide and then, he will be re-titled ‘Worthy Cawdor’.
Furthermore Lady Macbeth ends her speech with a rhyming couplet to emphasise the prize that is there for the taking: ‘Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely soveign sway and mastedam’.
Lady Macbeth seems to have the audacity to kill the king in her own home, as she does not think a curse or perhaps the ghost of King Duncan haunting her home. For only killing a soul is nothing but killing the king is a ‘prize’ for Lady Macbeth and Macbeth shall become leaders of Scotland.
By contrast in Act 5 Scene 1 the whole atmosphere changes making the audience feel tense not due to the fear of more evil to be exposed but the possible suicide of Lady Macbeth. As quite clearly her language indicates that she is disturbed; her thought seem to be without order: ‘Hell is murky! Fie my lord-fire!’ (A5 S1 Line 35).
The first appearance of Lady Macbeth in the scene shows us her ‘accustom’ by ‘washing her hands’ as the gentlewoman says: ‘I have known her continue in this quarter of an hour’ (Lines 29-30). The audience learn that Lady Macbeth has turned from an intellectual lady to a mad one. The given facts we have are that she has anxiety disorders: a normal reaction to stress. Lady Macbeth’s whole obsession of ‘washing hands’, disturbed sleep, inability to relax relates to her disorders.
One key factor we must take under consideration is why did she end up going mad?
We know that the whole ignominy was due to stress, but how did this increase of stress overcome her?
We contemplate thinking ‘Is this the result of her once the use of her body by the witches?’
But we can only assume the stress is mainly dude to the death of Duncan. We also know that she planned the death of Duncan, as she knew to every single extent how the plans should proceed: ‘His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt of our great qell?’ (Lines 71-72). Whereas, if she never premeditated this whole regicide there would have been no spark to light up her stress. Yet again we see her manifestation of her obsession with washing her hands: ‘What will these hands ne’er be clean?’
Lady Macbeth visibly sounds like Macbeth when he murdered Duncan: Macbeth had the same obsession calling ‘great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hands?’ (Lines 60-1). While Lady Macbeth insured Macbeth ‘a little water to clean us of this deed’.
Interestingly Macbeth does not reveal any sign of madness to the audience despite the fact that he killed Duncan himself. With huge changes in the play the audience absorb more information of each character. The image of Macbeth rises as he shows how strong he is, not like his wife who the audience once we’re scared of terror from. Eligibly Lady Macbeth never heard how Duncan died on his very last breath, as Macbeth killed the great king with his own eyes. Surely we would state that Macbeth is more likely drive to insanity but on the contrary his wife broke down.
Lady Macbeth’s shows feelings of guilt, telling us that her intentions in Act 1 Scene 5 were bad if not evil, but suddenly her guilt illustrates from her language that she is regretful for what had happened; a changed lady. But from her actions we learn that she is oblivious to the world and has a lack of interest in life. It is as if she is still tormented by the past, as she relives the trauma in her dreams, thus leading to sleepwalking: ‘Here’s the smell of the blood still.’ (Line 48)
As a sign of guilt; her distressed mind, the past is revived to her as she hears past conversations with Macbeth about Duncan. This may be showing that she tried to change the past, but she could not as the ‘sin’ was already committed. Also the audience see that she repeats exact lines from the Acts before. Therefore showing that everything is still so vivid in her mind. This then maddens her even more in addition to the sleepwalking: ‘To bed, to bed: there’s knocking at the gate.’ (Line 63)
Furthermore, after the death of Duncan Lady Macbeth grew in strength tremendously as now she had the authority to do anything she pleased. In Lady Macbeth’s eyes Banquo was a threat to her and Macbeth once Macbeth killed Duncan, as a thought (of a murder) Banquo could jeopardise their future. So the death of Banquo was vital at the time. Later on she not only admits one murder, to her knowledge but of two: ‘I tell you again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come on’s grave’ (Lines 61-2)
In this Act Lady Macbeth’s language is set in prose, which discloses that she is no longer the language of a great lady: ‘Yet here’s a spot’ (Line 31). Later on, Lady Macbeth talks in a child-like manner revealing how weak she has become. During the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth her strongest point was her use of language, and now it seems her lowest point is her language. This withers down the image of the once ‘great’ Lady Macbeth and now helpless, ill-minded lady. ‘Gone’ is the sophisticated vocabulary and grammar to be replaced by language of almost child-like simplicity: ‘One; two: why, then ‘tis time to do’t’ (Line 34-5). This further emphasised by the occasion she speaks in verse suggestive of a nursery rhyme: ‘Thane of fife had a wife’. (Line 41)
The language of Lady Macbeth changes radically, and we see this change happening after the death of Duncan and the subsequent murders. Macbeth in Act 5 takes the role of being the ‘man’ and taking charge of the whole scenario. Lady Macbeth shows us that without the death of Duncan there would be no change in her, but just her evil revolving around her. She was greatly afflicted by the regicide which changed her radically. Her use of language and power soon grows fainter, and soon after this scene Lady Macbeth herself fades away.
