Lady Macbeth thinks Macbeth might not have the guts to fulfil this final prophecy which is to kill the king, “thou wouldst be great; art not without ambition; but without the illness should attend it” this quote suggests Lady Macbeth is about to take situation into her own hands.
So in this scene it suggests Lady Macbeth is extremely ambitious.
The next scene which is Act1: scene 7 it shows that Malcolm’s predictions seem accurate because she is at her most ruthless.
She questions him repeatedly in a taunting manner. She lectures him, asking him if he was too afraid to fulfil his ambition: “And lie a coward in thine own esteem” she goes on to ask questions of his masculinity: “when you durst do it, you were a man.” Her most brutal declaration occurs when she claims she would rather kill her own baby feeding on her breast than abandon a promise: “I would, while smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums and dashe’d the brains out…..”
In this scene Lady Macbeth is at her most ruthless and is a very depraved person.
In Act 2: scene 2 we see a different side to Lady Macbeth, she is very anxious and concerned in case Macbeth gets caught and she is worried about the consequences. Her reaction would suggest that she has still a bit of humanity in her and this is reinforced when she says, “Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it” However, regardless of these revelations, Lady Macbeth is still portrayed in this scene as scheming and very strong willed. She keeps him clam as Macbeth goes to pieces. She chastises him for feeling guilty and tells him not to dwell upon the deed: “These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will make us mad” so Malcolm’s conclusion that she is a “fiend” is not entirely true.
In Act 2: scene 3 Lady Macbeth plays a minor role. Duncan’s body has been discovered, along with Macbeth, she pretends to be shocked, “Woe, alas! What, in our house?”
Her fainting could have been pretence to divert her attention away from Macbeth, but this is the first time Lady Macbeth heard that Macbeth killed the guards so she could genuinely fainted. So there is no evidence in this scene to call her a “fiend” but the complete opposite because she is caring to Macbeth.
The next scene which she appears in is Act 3: scene 4 Lady Macbeth plays a major role because it marks the point where Lady Macbeth looses touch with Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth assumes that Macbeth’s strange behaviour is a result of a guilty conscience.
She is nonetheless very resourceful in handling the situation. But Lady Macbeth covers up for him by saying he has had these “fits” from his youth, “you shall offend him, and extend his passion: feed your regard him not” then she tries a tactic that was successful before by question his masculinity:
“Are you man?”
So in this scene her concern is obvious. Her love for Macbeth is possibly the best point in her character.
In Act 5: scene 1 there is a lot of evidence to contradict Malcolm’s prediction, that she is a “fiend like queen.”
Since the first time we saw Lady Macbeth in Act 1: scene 5 she is a totally different person, she has lost control; her sanity has left her, she isn’t very stable she totally broke down, this isn’t a sign of a bad woman if she was she wouldn’t have lost all her sanity and went on to kill herself. So this is putting a question mark over Malcolm’s prophecy and judgement.
Lady Macbeth’s gentlewoman and the doctor make his audience aware of what has happened to her. Her “ramblings” and her performance suggest that she has suffered emotional disorder. She continually refers to the aftermath of Duncan’s murder. “Yet who would have thought the old man to have much blood in him” It is as if she is reliving the urgency of that night and this is intensified in the line, “To bed, to bed, there’s a knocking at the gate”
So in conclusion I cannot support Malcolm’s statement, though I can appreciate how a son whose father has been brutally murdered must have this personal opinion of her.
Damon Teague
