Lady Macbeth is also very unnatural. She calls upon unnatural beings to assist her. “Unsex me here and fill me from the crown to toe top full of direst cruelty.” She does not want to be sweet and feminine. “Unsex me” shows the reader or audience that she wants to be more masculine. She is rejecting her female qualities. She wants to have more power and strength usually associated with the male. She is willing to sacrifice her feminine side to evil spirits. This quote is like a spell, which shows she is not afraid of magic and will do anything to get her way.
“That I may pour my spirits in thine ear/and chastise with the valour of my tongue”. “Spirits” can be interpreted in two ways. You could say that it means she pours her soul into Macbeth. Her nature is harsher and she would be able to kill if the time came. She could make Macbeth more like her. Or you could say that it means she is calling evil spirits to make him more ambitious. It is as though she is casting a spell on him. But both meanings tell the audience that she wants to change him to be immoral and able to kill as she thinks necessary. “Come to my woman’s breast and take my milk for gall.” In this part of the speech she is denying her maternal instincts, feeding a baby is giving life and she wants to destroy life. “Gall” is a very bitter substance and shows she has no compassion and no loving characteristics. If she had any children then they would have to drink this bitter substance instead of the milk babies usually drink and it shows she would not care for their happiness.
Lady Macbeth could be described as evil. “The raven himself is hoarse/That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan/under by battlement.” The raven is associated with death and even he is trying to warn King Duncan. This shows King Duncan is good king and, because of the divine right of kings, what Lady Macbeth is planning to do is wrong and evil in the eyes of God.
“Come you spirits that tend on mortal thought.” Lady Macbeth is calling out in a kind of prayer-like spell to the evil spirits to help her. Most people of the time would be scared of the magic and would be to afraid of the consequences that might surround the evilness. Also she is calling out to the thoughts of mortals. Because of this it might be suggested that she isn’t a human but some magical being in this case a witch with the other evidence of the spell like soliloquy.
“Come thick night/And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell/That my keen knife sees not the wound it makes.” Lady Macbeth wants all the darkness to hide her and block out the light in her life. She wants to be hidden from the heavens and God so they will not see the crimes she will commit. It also shows that she is not scared of death. She calls again on evil and darkness to get rid of goodness and light. She wants the darkness to cover up her evil thoughts and deeds. She realises what she is doing is wrong but still wants to go ahead with it. “Pall” is a funeral cloth and reinforces how focused she is on Duncan’s death and how she wants the darkness to cover Duncan alive just like the funeral cloth will cover Duncan’s coffin when he is dead.
Lady Macbeth’s use of language in Act 1 is descriptive, sophisticated but also violent and death related. The imagery she uses reflects her unnatural character.
“Make thick my blood/Stop up the access and passage to remorse.” In this quote, Lady Macbeth wants her blood to be so thick that she cannot feel the guilt. She wants to destroy her human feelings to be totally unstoppable. This reinforces her unnatural characteristics. Lady Macbeth personifies the night.
Lady Macbeth is a very determined and strong woman, which in the 17th century, would be very unusual. Women of the time were submissive and just did household jobs whereas the men would be in control. A Shakespearean audience would be shocked at the amount of control Lady Macbeth had over her husband. It would be very hard to accept that the woman was the strongest person in a relationship. She was masculine in the way she thought. The audience would also be shocked at her plans to murder the King. This would be because she was a woman and because she wanted to kill the good King, which went against the divine right of kings, the fact that the king was chosen by God. Lady Macbeth acts in a very unnatural and un-ladylike way because she wants to kill the King. She rejects her feminine nature, which would unsettle the audience because women of the time would traditionally care for her family. A modern audience would not be as shocked as a Shakespearean one that women can be stronger than men but they would be shocked at the way she wants to kill the King. She thinks in a brutal manner and it is unusual for a woman, stereotypically, to think her husband needs to be less kind. The audience would be horrified at her plans for murder but would not notice the hold she has over her husband because strong women are not unusual today.
Lady Macbeth continues to take control during Act 2 Scene 2 and Act 2 Scene 3. During Act 2 Scene 2, she becomes physically involved in the murder when she places the daggers by the guards when Macbeth is in too much shock and fails to complete Lady Macbeth’s plan. Also in Act 2 Scene 2, she tells Macbeth to wash away Duncan’s blood. “A little water clears us of this deed.” She treats the crime as though it can be easily dismissed and forgotten. She believes by washing the blood from her hands she will also wash away her guilt. In Act 2 Scene 3, Macbeth admits to killing the guards. He is slowly falling under suspicion so Lady Macbeth faints. Fainting is usually associated with female qualities and although she has rejected this side of her characteristics earlier in the play, she is willing to use feminine wiles now to save Macbeth from her suspicion and this shows her manipulative powers.
Looking at Act 5 Scene 1, we realise how much Lady Macbeth’s character differs to Act 1 Scene 5. This is the last time in the play that we see her and she is considerably weaker and losing her sanity. She seems destroyed by all the murders that have been committed by her husband. She feels guilty that innocent people have died and especially the murder of Macduff’s family and the people who worked for him. Macbeth appears to have switched places with her as he has become stronger and more determined. Macbeth will not stop until there is no one who could stop him and Lady Macbeth is not needed to support him any more. She was cast aside, unwanted, as Macbeth became very independent.
Lady Macbeth became very afraid of the evil and the darkness. She always had a candle with her. “She has light by her continually. Tis her command.” She wants the light of the candle to protect her from the dark, from the evil. The light represents goodness and the dark represents evil. This quote is ironic because in Act 1 Scene 5 she called upon the evil spirits to fill her body with evilness and to block the light out of her life so she could murder Duncan. Now she wants the light to surround her so she can forget about the murder of Duncan and be saved from the darkness she summonsed earlier in the play.
Guilt now consumes her daily life. She feels guilty because she set Macbeth on the path that made innocent people die. She also feels guilty for planning and assisting in the murder of the rightful King.
“Look, how she rubs her hands…/It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands.” Lady Macbeth is losing control of her mind. She becomes completely obsessed with trying to wash her hands. She is trying to wash away Duncan’s blood that she imagines is on her hands. This quote is ironic because it is a complete contrast to Act 1 when she tells Macbeth that a “little water” will clear them of the deed. She cannot wash away the guilt, which is represented as Duncan’s blood on her hands. It shows that she never overcame the overwhelming feeling of guilt.
“Yet here’s a spot…/Out, damned spot! Out I say!” This quote is also showing that Lady Macbeth is seeing blood of Duncan’s that is not there. She is overcome with guilt. The repetition and exclamation marks emphasise her confused behaviour. In these three quotes Lady Macbeth is using simple language. It also shows that she is scared because she is going insane and she wants to be free of guilt.
Lady Macbeth loses control of her life. “I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her…yet all the while in a most fast sleep.” She has been so disturbed by everything that has gone on around her she has lost control of her actions. This is such a contrast to the strong independent woman at the start of the play. Her downfall would be quite a shock to the audience. Lady Macbeth starts to relive past events. “Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him.” She is reliving the night of Duncan’s death and while continually trying to wash her hands it reminds the audience of her easy confidence after they killed the rightful King and Macbeth’s attitude after he killed Duncan. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/Clean from my hand?” The spot Lady Macbeth is trying to rub out could be the sign of the devil. It could be that all the evil deeds of wickedness overpowered her into a spiralling downfall. Her constant rambling in this scene emphasises her loss of control.
Lady Macbeth’s mind has become very confused. “Wash your hands, put on your nightgown – look not so pale…Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.” She is again reliving the past. Her mind is so confused she thinks she is talking to Macbeth who isn’t there. Her language has changed dramatically since Act 1 Scene 5 and reflects the change in her once strong character. In Act 1, Lady Macbeth’s language was powerful, sophisticated and full of dark and evil images. The raven soliloquy confirms this. However, in Act 5 her language becomes feeble, she stammers and rambles on about things that do not seem to exist at the time. This emphasises her confused state of mind and how she is no longer in control.
Lady Macbeth’s character dramatically changes throughout the shortest of Shakespeare’s plays. Her determined, manipulative and unnatural character changes quickly into a lost, scared and helpless woman. She feels guilty about the killing of innocent people that began with the murder of Duncan. By the end of the play her guilty conscience drives her to the only thing that can silence the voices in her head, suicide. Shakespeare chose this ending to satisfy his contemporary audience. They would have been shocked at the rightful king’s death and to reassure them he had to destroy the evil. He had to confirm that anyone who went against the divine right of kings would pay the ultimate penalty: death.
