Lady Macbeth shows her complete faith in the witches and the supernatural. “And shalt be what thou art promised” Lady Macbeth is plotting and identifying Macbeths weaknesses before she is interrupted by the attendant who tells her that the king is coming “the king comes here tonight”. This makes Lady Macbeth speed up her plotting. Lady Macbeth’s speech is very interesting and forces lots of tension upon the audience. Lady Macbeth is the one in control of Macbeth and knows it “under my battlements” and linking back to her faith in the supernatural, she asks for assistance, she asks for the spirits to make her cruel “fill me from the crown to the toe topful of direst cruelty” and unremorseful “stop up th’access and passage to remorse”. She wants to be helped to have no regrets or hesitation in doing whatever it takes to gaining the crown.
Lady Macbeth, in her mind, has already decided how she is going to carry out the murder. “That my keen knife see not the wound it makes”. Some people refer to Lady Macbeth as “the fourth witch” because of the way she doesn’t have to think about her methods of gaining kingship and the way she can manipulate her husband so well. Lady Macbeth learns that Duncan is staying the night and leaving in the morning “tomorrow as he purposes” so both her and the audience know that she is going to have to commit the murder that night, creating tension.
Lady Macbeth now has only one night to do the deed, she feels that she will have to do it because she thinks Macbeth isn’t a murderer and won’t be able to do it. “Thou wouldst not play false”, “without the illness should attend it”. There is very powerful imagery in this scene, “the raven himself is hoarse” ravens were seen as messengers of death, the devils bird etc. Which would create tension in the sense that where there are ravens, there is going to be death. This and the use of the words “the fatal entrance of Duncan” and “unsex me here” would not only create tension and excitement, it would be disturbing for the audience, because of the direct links to the supernatural.
Lady Macbeth’s speech talks of how she wants to lose her femininity, to become evil and cruel in every sense which creates tension, the dramatic climax is broken by Macbeth entering. Macbeth opens the comment “thy dearest love” and then he reminds the audience of the plot by telling Lady Macbeth that Duncan is coming, which will resume the tense situation. Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth her plot; the audience will not be expecting this, creating tension. Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth how he should hide he true feelings and deceive everyone around him. “Look like t’innocent flower but be the serpent under’t.” She seems to be telling Macbeth how to behave, another piece of evidence showing Lady Macbeths dominance over Macbeth.
Macbeth then says “we will speak further” this will create massive dramatic tension because the audience will want to resume the conversation and find out more of the plot. Macbeth is very optimistic, meaning he is definitely thinking of carrying out Lady Macbeths plan, creating suspense. The dramatic climax of the scene is at the end “leave it to me” Lady Macbeth once again shows her dominance over Macbeth. “Only look up clear; to alter favour ever is to fear” rhyming couplet, link to supernatural creating tension.
Shakespeare makes Lady Macbeth the strongest character to make the play more interesting and to create massive tension. Her being evil makes the play even more interesting still but the way she asks the supernatural for help with making her unremorseful and cruel wouldn’t only create excitement and suspense; it would also disturb the audience.