There is evidently a theme in the play as to the relationship between gender and power.
Her husband implies that she is a “masculine soul inhabiting a female body”, linking masculinity to ambition and violence. Shakespeare, however, uses her and the witches to humiliate Macbeth’s idea that “undaunted mettle should compose / nothing but males” (I.vii.73-74). These crafty women use more female methods of achieving power such as manipulation as to further their supposedly male ambitions. The play implies that women can be as ambitious and cruel as men, yet social matters deny them the means to pursue these ambitions on their own.
Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband with remarkable effectiveness by overriding all of his objections. At one point Macbeth hesitates to murder but she repeatedly questions his manhood until he feels that he must commit the act just to prove himself, and she does this by implying that he is a coward, and says that her husband would definitely like to be more powerful, “ Thou wouldst be great / Art now without ambition…”
Lady Macbeth’s remarkable strength of will persists through the murder of the king and it is she who steadies her husband’s nerves immediately after the crime has been perpetrated.
Thereafter, however, she begins a slow decline into madness. It’s just like when ambition affected her more strongly than Macbeth before the crime, guilt plagued her more strongly afterwards. Near to the end of the play she has been reduced to sleepwalking through the castle, desperately trying to wash away an invisible bloodstain. In Act 5, scene 1 Lady Macbeth hassles that Macbeth’s hands will never be clean, “ Out, damned spot! Out, I say… / what, will these hands ne’er be clean”
As the sense of guilt intensifies, Lady Macbeth’s sensitivity becomes a weakness and she is unable to cope. She comes to a point where she (apparently) kills herself, signalling her total inability to deal with the emotional effects of their crimes.
Throughout the play, the witches, referred to as the “weird sisters” by many of the characters, lurk like dark thoughts and unconscious temptations to evil. In part, the mischief they cause sterns from their supernatural powers, but mainly it is the result of their understanding of the weaknesses of their specific victim’s- they play upon Macbeth’s ambition like puppeteers.
Throughout the play, we can gather that Lady Macbeth is a dominant force behind the killing of Duncan because of her relentless powers towards Macbeth. There is only one point where Lady Macbeth’s had become discomforted. This was when she took the daggers from Macbeth, and at that point both she and Macbeth were shocked, nervous, and unsteady. This was because Macbeth had forgotten about the plot to frame the guards so that he could literally get away with murder. This was ironic because his wife was usually in control; Macbeth is like the pawn to her, as she always tells him what to do.
In this tragic drama, Macbeth, supposedly the hero, constantly declines in his level of morality until his death at the end of the play. Because of his change of character from good to evil, Macbeth’s attitude towards other characters, specifically Duncan, Banquo, Lady Macbeth, and the witches, is significantly affected.
In particular, Macbeth’s attitude towards Lady Macbeth is very complex. They interact with each other a considerable amount, and this influences Macbeth vastly. They are, as a pair, very dangerous, because his ambition combined with her bloodiness can cause fatal situations. In Macbeth’s letter to his wife, he calls her “my dearest partner of greatness” (Act 1, scene v, 8), and later, when he is talking to her in person, he calls her “My dearest love” (Act 1, scene v, 54). Shakespeare shows their close relationship until they have started falling into a state of near-despair after the murder of Banquo and Macduff’s wife and son. From this point onwards, they had started to separate a great deal. In act five, scene five, Macbeth hears the "cry of women" and not even noticing that it is a woman's cry, let alone that of his own wife, asks, "What is that noise?" (7). He feels so little towards her that when he is informed that she has just died, he remarks that "She should have died hereafter" (17), meaning that she would have died anyway. His loss of feeling towards his wife most likely is caused by his distraction and present state of mind. Had his mind been calm and relaxed, not distracted by anything, he probably would have reacted to this news with more feeling. However, his whole personality has changed, and perhaps death does not faze him any more because he has committed five murders since the beginning of the play.
It is obvious that Lady Macbeth’s ambition to be queen had proved to be an immense factor in the assassination of Duncan. She was very clever, manipulative, sly and sneaky in accomplishing her desires, and this shows in Act 1, Scene 7, when she became very impatient with Macbeth on his continuous refusal to murder Duncan. She requests to Macbeth that they will “speak no further”; she is anxious to get Duncan out of the question.
Macbeth is a tragedy of a good, brave and honourable man turned into a personification of evil by the workings of unreasonable ambition, and has made this story one of Shakespeare’s most unique and controversial plays.
It can certainly be argued that Lady Macbeth was a strong driving force behind the murder of Duncan. She twisted Macbeth’s thoughts and drove him to the death of many more characters, leading him toward insanity. But, although we can argue that Lady Macbeth perhaps was the real driving force behind the murder of Duncan, we can also argue that Macbeth had his own personal reasons for killing Duncan. He already desired to be king and he disapproved of his place in the first place. It must also be mentioned that although she may have driven him to it, he still carried out the act himself with his own two hands.
The tragic downfall of Macbeth was not one single cause, but rather caused by a combination of three dark forces: supernatural, external and internal. The three witches represent the supernatural forces. Lady Macbeth acts as Macbeth’s external force, pushing him towards the bloody deeds. Macbeth’s own ambition and inner desires are the internal forces he battles and they act as the deciding power in bringing him to his downfall.
Either way, Lady Macbeth did play a crucial part behind Duncan’s death, maybe not the full blame, but definitely, the statement is not completely false. Her lust for power
(“ Come you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here/ And fill me, from crown to the toe, top-full/ Of direst cruelty…” Act 1, Scene v, 39-40) is exercised by indirection, through her husband and the prospect of being queen. She steadily loses that power after Duncan’s death, fading into a lonely, guilt ridden, and finally suicidal melancholy. After all, this is what the play is all about- the different aspects and conspiracies in which certain tragedies occur.
In conclusion I believe it is quite evident she had a large part to play in the murder, but she is not fully to blame as it was not she who committed the act. The tragedy of the story is that a man could be driven this far to commit such a murder by his own wife.
