In Lady Macbeth’s response to the letter from Macbeth, we see more of her uncommon qualities. Immediately after reading the letter, she becomes ambitious for what Macbeth has said is promised to her – to be queen. She wants to believe it and she wants the crown now, and has to plan to get it. She identifies Macbeth as the potential weakness to the plan. She knows his personality; he has ambition but he is more willing to wait for kingship, to come by it honestly that to take it. “[Thou] art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it; what thou wouldst highly, that wouldst thou holily.” She wills him to come home early so that she can persuade him to undertake the plan with her: “Hie thee hither, that I may pour my spirits in thine ear, and chastise with the valour of my tongue all that impedes thee from the golden round…”
Whilst Lady Macbeth is willing to take control of the situation, to tamper with fate so that it goes in favor of them, her husband, although he believes the witches prophecy, he is prepared to do nothing: “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me without my stir.” He is unaware that his wife has been planning the murder of Duncan. He has no ambition to do such thing. And although his mind has suggested murder, Macbeth does not regard as a real option: “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical…”
Once Lady Macbeth is told that Duncan is on his way, she knows that this is the only opportunity to do away with the king there and then: “…the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements.” She knows what she has to do. Her ambition is open for all to see, yet she fears her own femininity will stop them from achieving their goal. She calls upon evil spirits to take away all her womanly qualities that might hinder them: love, compassion, pity etc. “Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts! Unsex me here…” She asks to be relieved of guilt and remorse and to be filled with cruelty. “…And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty […] stop up the access and passage to remorse…” By doing this she shows that she believes in the supernatural and its abilities, therefore showing belief in the witches too. She will be the hostess but also plan and, at this point anyway, carry out the actual murder with Macbeth.
Macbeth is surprised at his wife’s ambition and deceit and it shows: “Your face, my thane, is as a book where men may read strange matters,” Lady Macbeth comments. She continues to organize everything on her own, “Leave all the rest to me”, telling her husband to “look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under ‘t”. However, Macbeth is not convinced, and tells his wife that they “will speak further”.
In scene 7, Macbeth has found many reasons to not go ahead with the murder. Ambition is his only reason to commit regicide. After he tells his wife that “we will proceed no further in this business”, Lady Macbeth tries to persuade her husband to commit the murder through questioning his manhood and his courage: “Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire?” and “When you durst do it, then you were a man; and, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more than man.” Then she turns to emotional blackmail: “what beast was’t, then, that made you break this enterprise to me?” meaning what made you break your promise to me. But Macbeth didn’t promise himself, only told her of “what greatness is promised thee.” She tells him that she would rather kill her own child whilst feeding it than break a promise to her husband. “I would […] have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.” Within thirty lines of dialogue, Macbeth has already changed his mind: “if we should fail - “. This clearly demonstrates that Macbeth is easily manipulated, and he consents to carry out the murder with Lady Macbeth: “I am settled.” At this point they are still a partnership: “what cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan?” and Lady Macbeth is still prepared to commit the murder with Macbeth.
However, when it comes to the deed itself, Lady Macbeth was not quite as brave as she wanted to be. She has been drinking, requiring Dutch courage to get through the night. “That which hath made [the grooms] drunk hath made me bold, what hath quench’d [the grooms] hath given me fire.” She sounds bold, but is on edge. An owl shrieks and causes her jump, betraying her fearless exterior. This all goes on while Macbeth is murdering Duncan; Lady Macbeth would not do it because Duncan looked too much like her father: “Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t.” Clearly, the evil spirits that were supposed to free her of all femininity didn’t do their job properly, as she still has feelings and is not full of cruelty. But she still wants the deed done.
When Macbeth comes back from Duncan’s chamber, she takes control yet again. Although on edge, she does not feel any guilt for what has just occurred, possibly because she hasn’t actually witnessed it. While Macbeth is in shock, experiencing immediate remorse at what’s he done: “this is a sorry sight” she makes him wash the blood from his hands, trying to drive from him the thoughts of guilt and remorse. “A foolish thought to say a sorry sight” and “These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will make us mad.” When she discovers the daggers on Macbeth and he refuses to re-enter the chamber to frame the grooms, she is forced to take the daggers back and smear the grooms with blood: “Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers.” She comes back just as confident as before with her hands as red as Macbeth’s but claims “a little water clears us of this deed.” She continues to control the situation, thinking for Macbeth and herself. They go back to bed and wait for the deed to be uncovered.
Is Lady Macbeth the real driving force behind Duncan’s murder? We have all the evidence above to show that she is the more ambitious one. Without Lady Macbeth, Macbeth would have never committed the murder himself; he was willing to wait for chance to crown him without his stir. He had thought of reasons not to go ahead with the murder, but was easily manipulated by Lady Macbeth, and after the murder, while he displayed visible signs of remorse and guilt, Lady Macbeth remained in control and seemingly guiltless.
However, later in the play, it was Lady Macbeth that took her own life, having gone mad and become unable to live with the guilt any longer, and it was Macbeth that became hardened and cruel to the end. He showed no grief at his own wife’s death.
In my opinion, it would be too easy to blame Lady Macbeth for everything. I think that the witches are accountable for starting the events that happened in “Macbeth”. I believe that they started a chain reaction. How can we be sure that they were prophesizing, revealing fate? Did they just encourage Macbeth to believe in his fate hard enough that it somehow happened? I think so.
Out of context, Lady Macbeth is the real driving force, the guilty party, but in context of the entire play, I think she played a far smaller role than we credit her with.