As Macbeth enters we see Lady Macbeth greet him with respect, love and honour. As she tells Macbeth of her plans; she makes it clear that she believes that she and Macbeth can control time and make the future do what they want. Lady Macbeth reveals that she is some what worried about Macbeth giving the plot away with his face, so she tells him to try and put a deem face on so that no one will suspect anything,
‘look like the ‘innocent
flower
But be the serpent under’t.’
Shakespeare uses this metaphor to create a clear image of what Lady Macbeth is asking her husband to do, she wants Macbeth to be as happy and bright as a flower on the outside and to be the ‘serpent’ sad and murderous man underneath and inside. Lady Macbeth talks about hiding their intentions, she has assumed the role of leadership in their relationship which shows that she is in great control at the beginning of the play.
When Duncan arrives at the castle, Lady Macbeth leads him inside and so to his death. During Act one scene seven we see Lady Macbeth consistently having to reinforce Macbeths’ determination to carry out the murder as he wanders around the castle in doubt. As Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth why it would not be a good idea to carry out the murder and that he will not do it, she turns on him and starts to insult him telling him that he is a coward,
‘And live a coward in thine own esteem.’
This insult is not really true as Macbeth is a brave soldier, but Lady Macbeth uses it in hope that he will defend himself by saying that he is not a coward and he will then go on to say that he will commit the murder simply to show her that he’s not a coward. As if that wasn’t enough, Lady Macbeth then tries to explain to Macbeth what he is like,
‘Like the poor cat i’ the adage.’
Macbeth want the crown as the cat in the proverb wants to have the fish, but he will not do what it takes to get it, like the cat doesn’t want to get its paws wet to capture the fish. However Macbeth refuses once again, Lady Macbeth then goes to the extreme and uses imagery saying that she would rather dash out the brains of a baby than let a chance like this pass them by. Lady Macbeth seems to be getting more evil and wicked by the minute. Lady Macbeth eventually manages to get Macbeth to divert his feelings of right and wrong and then proceeds to tell him the plan that she has most evilly devised.
Now in Act two scene two we almost immediately see the flaws in Lady Macbeths’ iron will and strength as we learn that she has had to drink to keep up her spirits,
‘That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;’
We learn that for all Lady Macbeths’ malice she could not murder Duncan as he reminded her of her father, which does raise the question has Lady Macbeth managed to completely get rid of her conscience or is there still a trace of it in her? And is she completely and utterly evil or is she just fooling herself into thinking that she is? Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth that he has completed the murder and as he finished telling her he realizes the significance of what he has done. Macbeth had brought the daggers back with him from the murder scene and Lady Macbeth insults him and takes the daggers from him to return them to the bedroom. Lady Macbeth seems to have recovered from her earlier fears and is back to her ‘normal’ self. Macbeth then was starting to worry about the blood on their hands and to this Lady Macbeth replies,
‘A little water clears us of this deed.’
She does not seem the slightest bit worried about it and thinks that all they need to do to hide their criminal deed is to wash the blood from their hands.
In Act three scene four it is the last time that we see Lady Macbeth and Macbeth together. There is not too much to tell about Lady Macbeth in this scene, only that Macbeth takes control of the banquet and told Lady Macbeth what to do. However when Macbeth sees Banquos’ ghost he starts to act strangely and then once again there is a role reversal and Lady Macbeth once again takes control of the situation. However with all the stress she is already carrying she loses control and tells everyone to leave. As soon as the guests had gone Lady Macbeth broke down completely and turns into a broken and exhausting woman.
Lady Macbeth does not appear at all in Act four, which makes her appearance in Act five as a mad and broken woman all the more convincing. The realities of her conscience and her feelings have reduced her to this pitiful state. In Act five we see a dramatic change in her character in contrast with what she was like at the start of the play. At the beginning of the play she did not care about the blood on her hands the irony now is that she is sleepwalking and worrying about it,
‘what will these hands never be clear?’
She is starting to go mad and her conscience is coming back with all the feelings that she suppressed before and after the murder, they return to haunt her and drive her insane. She cannot stop thinking about the blood making yet more comments on it,
‘Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.’
In Act two scene two she said the total opposite and that a little bit of water will clear their hands of the deed, the irony is that she then goes on to say, later in the play, that not even all the perfumes in Arabia could take the smell of blood from her hands. Lady Macbeth was now living in her own private hell which is a great contrast with the certainty of her mind at the time of Duncan’s’ murder.
At the beginning of Act five scene one we see a Doctor discussing Lady Macbeth’s mental state with a lady servant. The servant told the Doctor that Lady Macbeth cannot bear to be without light. The irony here again, at the beginning of the play she wanted to be surrounded by darkness and now she cannot bear to be without light. The Doctor and the servant see Lady Macbeth sleepwalking and washing her hands and madly talking to herself going ovr and over the guilty details of her past. At one point she questions what will happen to her now,
‘The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?’
She is saying that Macduff had a wife that was killed and asked if that is what is going to happen to her? Evil has pervaded all of Lady Macbeth’s senses and she desperately wants something feminine back. Lady Macbeth starts to repent and prays for forgiveness so that she may go to heaven.
Almost at the close of the play we hear as if it were of no great importance at all that Lady Macbeth is dead, which was probably suicide. Lady Macbeth’s suffering drove her to despair which led to her death. Lady Macbeth’s character followed the pattern of decline, despair and death. Lady Macbeth believed that she could make herself as evil as she wanted to be. She did not think that if someone makes themselves this evil could they stay evil without some disastrous consequences? She had to find out and learn for herself and this is what we are shown. Her inability to murder Duncan gives us some idea that she would have a scrape of human kindness left in her. As Lady Macbeth leaves the true reality of evil we see that the strain of keeping up appearances has become intolerable and she has to support her husband, cover up for him and think about his own insecurities. All the strain proved too much for Lady Macbeth to cope with and it finally breaks her, and even in her madness she is tortured. There was no escape for Lady Macbeth from the guilt except possibly when she died. What made her character so fascinating was the changes that she went through and the fact that Shakespeare manages to make us pity her as evil as she was.
