As Lady Macbeth plans to kill King Duncan, she calls upon the spirits of murder to "make thick my blood; / Stop up the access and passage to remorse". Thin blood was considered wholesome in the past, and it was thought that poison made blood thick. Lady Macbeth wants to poison her own soul, so that she can kill without remorse. This again makes the audience feel no sympathy for Lady Macbeth but instead it makes them feel nothing for her except detestation
Lady Macbeth is very persuasive and convinces Macbeth into killing King Duncan. It seems that she doesn’t have a conscience, planning the whole murder. Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth to "look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't" this is telling us that Macbeth's wife wants him to look and act normal but hide his foul intentions, this makes Lady Macbeth seem like a cold hearted mastermind to the audience as she expects Macbeth to have dinner with the king whilst knowing that a few hours he will have to kill him in cold blood. Again this does nothing for the amount of sympathy the audience feel for her.
As Lady Macbeth waits for Macbeth to murder King Duncan and return to her, she says of the king's guards, "I have drugg'd their possets, / That death and nature do contend about them, / Whether they live or die". Here she uses the word "nature" in the sense of life, which struggles with death. Later in the scene, after Macbeth has killed the king, he frets that he has murdered sleep and that he will never sleep again. He speaks of sleep as "great nature's second course, / Chief nourisher in life's feast". The second course of a meal was the main course, not the appetizer or the dessert, and so the "chief nourisher." Macbeth feels that he will never again be nourished by kindly nature. This makes the audience ask them selves “why has she done this?” and it makes them hate her more than before.
But as the play progresses so does the character of Lady Macbeth, she cannot carry the burden of the murder and her conscience becomes too great for her to handle. Her mental and physical condition deteriorates as well which makes the audience sympathize with her for the first time in the play.
A gentlewoman observes her sleepwalking and consults a doctor. The doctor and the lady observe Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, and see her madly trying to clean her hands of the blood of Duncan and Macduff's family. Still in her sleep, Lady Macbeth asks, "what, will these hands ne're be clean?" foreseeing that she will never have peace of mind. She also retells events of the day Duncan was murdered. The doctor tells the gentlewoman that what Lady Macbeth needs is spiritual and not physical help. This again makes the audience feel sorry for Lady Macbeth as she is in so much torment she cannot even sleep properly.
Lady Macbeth's immediate thoughts may make her appear as thoroughly irreligiously cold and ambitious to the audience as she manipulates her husband with remarkable effectiveness, overriding all his objections; when he hesitates to murder she repeatedly questions his manhood until he feels that he must commit murder to prove himself. Lady Macbeth’s remarkable strength of will persists through the murder of the king, it is she who steadies her husband’s nerves immediately after the crime has been perpetrated. Afterward, however, she begins a slow slide into madness, just as ambition affected her more strongly than Macbeth before the crime, so did guilt plague her more strongly afterward. By the close of the play, she has been reduced to sleepwalking through the castle, desperately trying to wash away an invisible bloodstain. Lady Macbeth’s sensitivity becomes a weakness, and she is unable to cope. Significantly, she kills herself, signalling her total inability to deal with the legacy of their crimes. On the whole the audience of the play “Macbeth” could sympathise with Lady Macbeth at some points as she was suffering but in other cases they could hate her as she was cold hearted, selfish and evil.
