“Your hand, your tongue; look like th’innocent flower,
But be serpent under’t”.
Lady Macbeth makes her husband feel little, making him feel uneasy about his position, being head of the house. This shows Lady Macbeth as being a domineering woman.
It is a noticeable fact that Lady Macbeth is very persuasive. In scene seven Lady Macbeth is not very pleased with her husbands attitude towards their situation, she feels that he is having doubts about becoming King. She then questions his manhood and continues on this theme by saying that if she had made him a promise, she would never break it, even if it meant taking the life of her own child. She stresses this point deeply when she says;
“I would while it was smiling in my face,
have plucked my nipple from it’s boneless gums,
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done this”.
One question unanswered is where does Lady Macbeth get her motivation from? She shows herself as a ruthless person. She has no compassion for anyone even if it was her child. It is especially shocking for a woman to say the kinds of things that Lady Macbeth has said. This is an obvious judge of her fiendish characteristics. The situation of Lady Macbeth saying that she could take the life of her own child could make it seem that she really were fiendish as Malcolm said. Because killing a child, especially your own would require a really evil person, so forcing us to agree with Malcolm. The situation could also be seen as an argument in her favour. Because she may not really mean it. She has said it but this does not mean she would take it into effect. She may have used the expression to stress how loyal she would be to Macbeth and thought the imagery and love that is between a mother and child would be the most powerful to use to enable her get her views across and change Macbeth’s mind.
There are times in the play when you can indeed say that Lady Macbeth is possessed by evil, for instance after Duncan’s murder and on reading the letter. Although there are times where there are touches of normality concerning Lady Macbeth. An example would be her comments about Duncan;
“ Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t”
This is another argument against her being fiendish because it is an instance where she is shown to have feeling, concerned with caring for another person which in this case is her father. Also previously she had required some alcohol to help her get through the situation, Dutch Courage to be exact, in referral to the drink she says;
“ That which hath made them drunk,
hath made me bold;
What hath quenched them, hath given me fire”.
If she were really fiend like she would not have needed to drink to get Dutch courage because she would have relied on her own evil to continue with the act. If she was not fiend like at all she would not have been able to do so and therefore did need the drink because she is not fiendish. Despite this Lady Macbeth keeps strong and persuades Lord Macbeth to commit the murder. This turns around later because when situation gets tougher, Lady Macbeth is the one who cannot handle it, proving hat she were not the stronger of the two although she tries hard to portray that she is through her actions and words;
“ To alter favour ever is to fear”
She is warning her husband to stay strong she is basically saying with a guilty face which is represented through favour will eventually reveal itself and being afraid will result in a guilty face. Immediately after the murder Lady Macbeth was calm in front of her husband and she gently mocked him as he grew afraid of getting caught as the murder was on his conscience. As she said;
“ A little water clears us of this deed”
Lady Macbeth is referring to the blood stains on her hands she is saying that once they are they are not tied to the murder in anyway. She gets the blood from the murder off her hands but I am not so sure that she gets rid of the murder off her conscience.
When the murder of King Duncan is out in the open, on hearing the news of Duncan’s death, of which Lady Macbeth already knew, she fainted. On her fainting we do not really know whether it was a result of general shock , a distraction to eradicate her of the crime because it would look like the first time that she had known of his murder. This is ironic because we, the audience already know that she is well informed of the murder as she was present as well as being a contributor. Or was her fainting because her husband was foolishly nearly revealing them as the murderers. Had she fainted to distract everyone especially Macbeth from saying anymore.
Later in the play, Macbeth had planned more murders with which Lady Macbeth is not involved with. This can be interpreted as Macbeth trying to show his wife that he is strong and loyal and would do anything to keep her happy and the murders are his portrayal of this. It can be said that Lord Macbeth becomes too spontaneous regarding the murders. Without the assistance and comfort of his wife he goes haywire at the thought of being caught. Showing Lady Macbeth as an supporting figure for Macbeth. We can see that Lady Macbeth has become unable to break down the isolation between her husband and herself.
During the banquet scene, Lady Macbeth efforts are really tested as she tries with great patience to keep her husband calm;
“ Sit worthy friends. My Lord is often thus,
and hath been from his youth”.
All through the banquet Lady Macbeth is keeping up appearances but later on loses control of the situation and loses her energy to protect him;
“ You have displaced the mirth,
Broke the good meeting with most desired disorder”.
In act five we begin to see Lady Macbeth showing certain signs of insanity. She is consumed with madness and guilt. Sleep denies her any healing. It is almost as if she is re-tracing the events before and after the murder. This scene is very ironic, the reason being that she had previously told her husband when he was feeling guilty that;
“ A little water will clear us of this deed”
It was not that simple she was the one who could not bear the guilt, she continuously speaks about the amount of blood she can supposedly see. Also the fact that earlier in the play Lady Macbeth said ;
“ These deeds must not be thought
After these ways ; so, it will make us mad”.
This is what she had said to her husband in his moment of fear, but know she was the one who was recollecting and making herself mad over it. Lady Macbeth had said that her husband could not handle it. Macbeth showed signs of losing it at the banquet when he said he saw Banquo’s ghost and became slightly psychotic. It can be said that Lady Macbeth could not handle it so much that it lead to her demise. After this time we next hear of Lady Macbeth being ill and eventually taking her own life. She was a woman destroyed by guilt. If she were fiendish she would not have been this weak.
From my point of view I think that Lady Macbeth is not a fiendish queen. We can understand where Malcolm is coming from after he suffered at the hands of the Macbeth’s, he lost friends as well as his King. We cannot define Lady Macbeth on the basis of Malcolm’s comment alone this is just one person’s point of view. We may all take pity on Lady Macbeth but we are no way condoning what she did.
Lady Macbeth was an incomplete woman she wanted the best for her husband and herself. So badly that she was ready to commit murder. If she was as fiendish as Malcolm said she was. She would not have erased all the evil from herself before her death. Maybe because she was genuinely sorry and was not fiendish at all .
The audience have a greater insight of Lady Macbeth character. There are points in the play where to an extent she is very fiend-like. She certainly has a great influence over her husband, some might say that she was indeed the cause of his downfall or she was the guise of Macbeth himself. There is a certain difficulty understanding where she is coming from, what she is inspired by. The fact that she wants to be a good wife or her desire to become a queen.
Many people who have read or seen the play ‘Macbeth’ may think that Lady Macbeth is very fiendish but I think it is up to the individual to make their own assumptions on Lady Macbeth fiend-like qualities.
