This ambition is taken so far that it becomes “direst cruelty”. She not only wants Macbeth to be the King, but also wants to kill him to make that happen faster. The vocabulary and imagery used by Shakespeare in her second soliloquy show how dark her thoughts are. The “raven (…) that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan” is a dark image comparing the messenger of Duncan’s arrival with a bird that is associated with witchcraft and evil. “Make thick my blood, stop th’access and passage to remorse” is a metaphor that suggests an insensitive being, to the point of hardly being human, as thick blood is unnatural and unreal. As for the vocabulary, “mortal thoughts”, “murd’ring ministers”, “mischief”, “smoke of hell” all belong to the lexical field of crime and sin. Lady Macbeth is therefore a dark character that will not contain her ambition because of it otherwise being wrong.
However, although she craves for the King to be killed, Lady Macbeth doesn’t actually have the courage to do it herself. Never does she speak of another option than that of her husband killing Duncan. She speaks of a baby and how she could have “pluck’d (her) nipple from his boneless gums and dash’d the brains out”, yet she doesn’t show this capacity and courage in any way. This shows a certain cowardice in Lady Macbeth that is not immediately recognisable, as she seems so reckless in her speech. She even “chastises” her husband about him not having enough courage, being “too full o’th’milk of human kindness”, yet she doesn’t have that courage either, her cowardice made even greater by her critique of something she has too, and her cruelty made greater by her will to make her husband, who she loves, do something that she herself cannot.
Finally, it is the fine ability to conceal the truth that makes Lady Macbeth so peculiar. While Macbeth remains inside his castle by fear of not being able to hide their plans, his wife greets the King and his men with “every point twice done and then done double”, and praises the king with vocabulary such as “honours”, “dignities”, “at your highness’s pleasure”. This shows a hypocrisy in Lady Macbeth that enables her to conceal her thoughts, but makes her rather unappreciated by the audience.
The character of Lady Macbeth in the first act is therefore presented quite pejoratively in this play. Shakespeare exposes her as a cruel character with too much ambition, which is a dangerous combination (as Duncan demonstrates). The unpleasantness of these traits is emphasised by her cowardice and hypocrisy. All in all she is portrayed as a character to be disliked by the audience, in opposition with Macbeth who as a result has more audience empathy.
