How important is lady Macbeth in acts one and two?

Will Hayler

We first see Lady Macbeth in act one scene five and she is reading the letter sent by Macbeth to her. We instantly see a side of evil and hate which was not expected of a woman at that time.

We see right from the start the Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind the murder of Duncan. Lady Macbeth thinks that Macbeth is too kind to kill Duncan and that he is “ too full o’th milk of human kindness”

Lady Macbeth wants to be like a man, for the spirits to take away her womanly kindness and to fill her with evil and hate. This is clear as she makes her speech “unsex me here” speech. Lady Macbeth also wants the spirits to take away her milk from her breast as she says “come to my woman’s breast and take my milk for gall”, gall meaning poison.

Lady Macbeth has intentions for Macbeth to kill Duncan when she hears from the messenger that he will be coming to their castle that night. She quotes “the raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan”. We know now that if Duncan goes there he will not see the light of the next day.

The impression we have of Lady Macbeth is that she is two faced or “fair is foul” (as quoted by the witches in scene 1 of act 1).

We can see as a result from her speeches that she intends for her true feelings not to get out when Duncan comes so, she tells Macbeth “look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t”. This is was Lady Macbeth is like when Duncan arrives.

In act 1 scene 7, we see the full extent of Lady Macbeth’s control over ...

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The impression we have of Lady Macbeth is that she is two faced or “fair is foul” (as quoted by the witches in scene 1 of act 1).

In act 1 scene 7, we see the full extent of Lady Macbeth’s control over husband, which makes her a very important character in the play. Macbeth has a soliloquy at the beginning of the scene and he comes up with only one reason why he should kill Duncan, for his “vaulting ambition” and about seven reasons why he should not kill him. Lady Macbeth uses several methods on her husband which makes him change his mind from saying “ we will proceed no further in this business” to “I am decided” which means that he changes his mind from saying that he won’t kill Duncan to saying that he will Duncan. The period in between that is the bit I will focus on because it shows that Lady Macbeth has extreme manipulation powers that are effective to use on her husband. Lady Macbeth starts the changing of his mind by calling Macbeth a coward. This is ironic because Macbeth is anything but a coward because he has slaughtered many men in the opening battle against the Norwegians. Although Macbeth is not a coward, it reaches him on a mental level and feels like a coward because he can’t bring himself to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth blackmails her husband by quoting ”such I account thy love” which means she saying, don’t you love me enough to do this? Because Macbeth does love her a lot it brings himself to the task.

Lady Macbeth has no thought or doubts of failing in the task and getting caught unlike her husband, because she is able to persuade Macbeth that her plan will work, it makes her very important during the acts.

After that scene we do not see Lady Macbeth until act 2 scene 2 where Duncan has been murdered and Macbeth has brought the daggers he used in murdering Duncan back to their room. After the incident Macbeth is already regretting killing Duncan but Lady Macbeth makes him fell like it is not a bad thing when she says after her husband:

Macbeth: this is a sorry sight

Lady Macbeth: A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight

Lady Macbeth makes herself important because she is a giver of advice to Macbeth as we can see when she says “ these deeds must not be thought after theses ways; so, it will make us mad”. She means that Macbeth must not think of these incidents from the on or it will make him go mad. Lady Macbeth as we know is tough so this gives her the confidence to do the deeds that Macbeth is scared to do like after the killing of Duncan where Macbeth is too scared to return the daggers back to the room of Duncan and smear blood on their faces so, Lady Macbeth does it for him.

Lady Macbeth is very good at toughening up Macbeth and making him the stronger of the two for example she quotes to him to make him feel ashamed “my hands are of your colour, but I shame to wear a heart so white”. This means that feels ashamed to wear a heart of such cowardice, but to Macbeth’s ears, if her heart is cowardice then he must be really big a coward.

The last time we see Lady Macbeth is in scene 3 of act 2 where she faints to give the thanes, lords etc that her and Macbeth are innocent of the crime and that it was committed by someone else which the others believe to be the kings sons, Malcolm and Donaldbain.