How does Shakespeare show the contrast in Lady Macbeths character between act 1 scene 5 and act 5 scene 1?

How does Shakespeare show the contrast in Lady Macbeth’s character between act 1 scene 5 and act 5 scene 1?

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy written in the 1600’s it explores the themes of good and evil, betrayal and the supernatural. It was written for King James who had recently made Shakespeare his play right out of thanks Shakespeare wrote Macbeth. King James believed himself to have magical healing powers and was fascinated by witchcraft he had even wrote a book on it. Society in Shakespeare’s time believed that women should be submissive and were the lesser sex, they were suppose to stay at home, look after the children, cook and clean they were suppose to be subservient. Macbeth would have had a great deal of significance to an Elizabethan audience as it was based on a time not to far away from their own. They would have known the significance of every act that went on in the play and how serious each of them was. At the time the king was believed to be picked by god, this meant that killing the king was like killing god which was the highest possible crime.

Macbeth is split into 5 Acts each with either three, four or seven scenes there are 30 characters in the play although 12 of these characters are minor with the exception of the witches and are only seen once or twice. The first characters we are introduced to are the witches as they plan to meet Macbeth after the battle and tell him of his future.

Macbeth details a Scottish general’s rise to power, throughout the play Macbeth shows strong themes of deception, betrayal, the supernatural and sleep. Macbeth starts out a good and honest man. However he quickly shows us how power can corrupt people and how absolute power corrupts absolutely.

When we first meet Lady Macbeth in act 1 scene 5 she comes across as a very dominant character that enjoys a level of power in her relationship, which at the time was unheard of. We are first shown this by the letter that she receives from Macbeth. He writes “my dearest partner of greatness.” The fact that he refers to her as this shows that she commands a lot of respect from her husband coupled with the fact that she was sent a letter shows that she isn’t your average woman and stands on an equal footing with Macbeth in their relationship this would have shocked and Elizabethan audience and been seen as unnatural even supernatural.

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Later on in the scene we are shown elements of the supernatural, Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to unsex her and fill her from head to toe with direst cruelty the literal meaning of this is turn me into a man and take away any feelings she might have that will prevent her from doing the evil deed. Obviously this doesn’t happen if we look deeper into this I believe that Lady Macbeth actually believes that as a woman she is not able to commit the crime or even plan it. This idea would have come from the social stigma attached to women at the time, they were considered to be lesser beings-unequal to men and not smart enough to plot a murder. Lady Macbeth may have been just trying to convince herself that she would be able to do it and used the belief in spirits and witchcraft at the time to do this.

We are then shown a large part of Lady Macbeth’s character she is shown to be confident and dominating. She mentions how Macbeths must hide his expression or he will be found out, this shows that she is already confident in her ability to hide her expression showing her to be cunning, at the same time Lady Macbeth is undermining Macbeth. By treating him like a child and telling what to do, she then says “leave all the rest to me.” Lady Macbeths does not think Macbeth capable of planning the murder and will do it herself. It can also be interpreted as Lady Macbeth doing all the hard work while Macbeth simply follows orders. Finally in this scene Lady Macbeths mentions Macbeth’s facial expression to be a place where men may read strange matters, this is a direct reference to how Lady Macbeth is acting and how strange and out of place it would have been at the time.

Act 1 scene 7 Lady Macbeth continues to assert her dominance and control over Macbeth. Macbeth’s conscience finally comes into play in this scene and Macbeth refuses to carry out Lady Macbeth’s orders and kill the king, we can see Macbeth’s conscience wrestling with his greed and desire. Lady Macbeth quickly begins manipulating Macbeth and begins insulting his manhood. She says “what beast was’t that made you break this enterprise to me” we see the brilliant side of Lady Macbeth although evil she is extremely intelligent to be able to control the situation so well. Lady Macbeth then goes as far as to say “I would, while it was smiling in my face, have pluck’d the nipple from his boneless gums, and dash’d the brains out, had I so sword as you have done to this.” She is going as far as using the horrific image of killing her own child while she breastfeeds it despite the bond they share. Lady Macbeth may have used this image as a front, this may be because she believes that this is for Macbeth and is showing him a sort of tough love. She may believe this is the only way Macbeth would be able to become king and only wants what’s best for him. An attitude like this would have been impossible because of how women were seen, they would have been thought incapable of intelligent thoughts like these. The Elizabethan audience would have been shocked, disturbed and maybe even outraged at his, a strong female character would have been controversial the fact that she would have been able to think for herself would be deemed impossible.

In the final part of the scene we see Lady Macbeth’s first notion of failure she believes that Macbeth may fail and that he won’t be able to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeths shows her the womanly side of her character when she admits that she is unable to kill Duncan as he reminds her of her father. This could point to Lady Macbeth’s first descent into madness or that she isn’t as tough as she would like everyone to believe and still has that womanly side to her even though the spirits supposedly took it away.

Next in act 2 scene 2 it’s the last time we see Lady Macbeth in control and still sane, in this scene Shakespeare uses the owl as a metaphor for the man who used to ring the funeral bell for condemned prisoners, although not so obvious today the Elizabethan audience would have easily grasped the meaning of it.

In this scene a lot of irony comes into play she first tells Macbeth “These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will make us mad” considering how this exact thing happens to her it’s very ironic. Late she says “Go get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hand.” This can be interpreted as just wash your hands and it will get rid of any evidence it will be like it never happened. But she doesn’t think about the guilt which can’t just be washed away and in the end the memory haunts her and causes her to finally go insane.

Macbeth then finds that no matter what he does he can’t get rid of the blood on his hands which symbolises the guilt that he feels after killing Duncan. “will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood from my hand” this is showing that Macbeth feels so guilty that he can still see the blood on his hands and that no matter how many times he washes them it wont go away. Shakespeare uses the imagery of the whole ocean to represent how much guilt Macbeth is feeling.

Act 5 scene 1 is the final scene we see Lady Macbeth in before she commits suicide by walking off the battlements and falling to her death. Suicide could be seen as Lady Macbeth’s final act of trying to cleanse herself or get rid of the guilt. I believed that Shakespeare killed Lady Macbeth off for two reasons, one would be Shakespeare’s views that evil acts never go unpunished. The other reason for her death would be due to the views on women at the time. If a strong female character had survived the play and come out victorious and unscathed the audience would have been outraged and the play view would have been received badly by the audience and King James, it would have been seen as controversial, which wouldn’t have been appropriate as it was a thank you to the king and he wouldn’t want all of his subjects in an uproar.

Lady Macbeth in this scene has been driven completely mad by her guilt and is being diagnosed by a doctor who is attempting to find out the source of her sleepwalking. This reflects the strong themes of sleep I mentioned it plays a large part in this scene. It should be noted that Lady Macbeth changes from verse to prose, I believe this is showing that Lady Macbeth has gone completely mad and has been reduced from a noble to the same level as a peasant. Shakespeare uses role reversal in this scene to show the contrast in her personality between act 1 scene 5 and act 5 scene 1. Macbeth is now guilt free and is planning and taking control of everything while Lady Macbeth slowly fades into the background and she is driven insane.

She continuously tries to wash her hands while she sleepwalks trying to get rid of the blood that she thinks she can see on her hands the same blood that she told Macbeth “Go get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hand.” Apart from Irony and guilt this can have another meaning though. Washing was seen as a woman’s job and what they were expected to do, all those wall that she built up while trying to make everyone believe she was tough have come down and she is now reverting to how a weak and helpless woman in the time period would act.

Due to how Lady Macbeth is put across in the play Shakespeare could be said to be a misogynist, but if we look deeper into I believe that Shakespeare is just trying reinforce his beliefs that evil acts do not go unpunished and that women in the time should know their place.

Conor Newton