Is Lady Macbeth a monster?

Authors Avatar

Is there enough evidence in the play to suggest that Lady Macbeth is a fiend- like Queen or do you retain a degree of sympathy for her?

I don’t think there is a simple answer to this question. I believe that Lady Macbeth did have some human emotions; however she had a dark side. Personally, I believe that she was fiend-like and power hungry, but she did have a human side, which we see later on in the play.

This play was written in the reign of James I. He was fascinated by the idea of magic and witchcraft, so he was enthralled by this play. This of course made the play very popular amongst the people in Great Britain, and is still very well known today. Even people that haven’t studied or read any Shakespeare plays before are still familiar with the story of Macbeth. Shakespeare's primary source for Macbeth was Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. The outlines of Shakespeare's story are derived from Holinshed's account of Kings Duncan and Macbeth. Although these characters existed, the story was purely fictional.

Lady Macbeth must have appeared to be completely un-feminine to an Elizabethan audience. At this time, women were expected to rear children and have a strong maternal instinct. Women were portrayed as being compassionate and kind-hearted. Lady Macbeth didn’t seem possess many of these qualities, so she must have seemed horrific because of her dark language and tone she used. Also because of the way she treated her husband, she was very dominant and controlling towards him, this was unheard of at this time. For these reasons, I can see why the audience at this time would have described her to be a monster.

The first time we meet Lady Macbeth is late in Act 1 Scene 5 when she is reading a letter, received from her husband. In this letter he refers to her as his “dearest partner in greatness” which shows that there is such a strong loving bond between the couple. The Elizabethan audience would have found this very strange because in these times, women were not regarded to be as important as men.

In Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy we can see that she has no hesitation in what action to take as she expresses that Macbeth “shall be what thou art promised.” But she knows that Macbeth is too kind to grasp the crown himself, her speech suggests that she will be the one who will commit regicide. She mentions the raven in her speech, which refers to death. She deliberately dedicates herself to evil by pleading with evil spirits to ‘posses her body’. She calls on demons and commands them to “unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty”. She wants these demons to remove any human qualities and emotions from her so she can commit this crime without feeling any remorse. Alliteration is used in ‘murdering ministers’ to emphasise the dark tone in her speech. She is willing to cast off her femininity to make her capable of murdering King Duncan. At this point in the play the audience would detest Lady Macbeth and they would probably have absolutely no sympathy for her. The audience would have been very religious and at this time a King was considered to be God’s anointed on earth. So Lady Macbeth’s plans would have been seen as sacrilegious. Lady Macbeth appears to be heartless and evil at this point. It would seem that she is the more dominant character in the marriage.

Join now!

She makes a constant call for darkness to hide the evil she intends to perform when she commands, ‘come thick night’. When Macbeth enters she refers to him as “great Glaims, worthy Cawdor!” and continues to say “Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!” These are the words that the witches used when prophesising to Macbeth. This could suggest that she is the fourth witch.

She is extremely impulsive as she doesn’t consider the implications or consequences that her actions may have. She orders Macbeth to “look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under ‘t.” She is telling ...

This is a preview of the whole essay