In another soliloquy, Lady Macbeth summons the spirits of darkness to take away her womanliness and to fill herself with bitterness and cruelty, ‘…unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty.’ Women have been often thought as naturally more gentle than men, but Lady Macbeth is thinking about murder, and so she calls on the ‘spirits’ to take away this natural femininity and kindness. She wants to ‘make thick my blood…’ The spirits she talks about are the part of her that would allow her to kill and have no remorse, so she’s talking about them to motivate herself. She also asks for the ability to commit the murder without seeing what she is doing, and without being seen.
She also says ‘That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, to cry ‘Hold, hold!’ She is saying that she doesn’t want her knife to see what is happening, nor the heavens. As the knife has no eyes, it is a metaphor for her will, and ‘heaven’ is a metaphor of her conscience, as she is thinking about religion, and how murder is a terrible sin. Metaphors are used by Shakespeare in most of his plays, using symbols and comments to suggest something different.
These are the first signs we get of Lady Macbeth battling with her conscience and will. Its shows that she wants to be a killer (showing will) but on the other hand, there is a part of her that wants to close her eyes to what she wants to do (showing conscience).
Lady Macbeth greets her husband as he gets back and talks to him about killing Duncan in order to be crowned. She advises him to be deceitful, ‘look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.’ She tells Macbeth that he must be better at deceiving people and at being evil, if he wants to achieve his ambitions.
During Act 1, Scene 7, Lady Macbeth uses her determination to persuade her husband. Her husband opens the scene in a soliloquy, wrestling with his conscience. He is ambitious and wants the crown, but he also wants to get it fairly, and he knows that regicide is a terrible crime to commit. Macbeth goes on to list all the reasons he doesn’t want to kill Duncan, and that his goodness will be ‘like angels, trumpet-tongued’ if he is murdered and Macbeth will be condemned to ‘deep damnation’. Shakespeare uses a lot of imagery of heaven and hell are linked to the action of the play, as in Shakespeare’s time the audience would believe strongly in the idea of divine right.
Also, Shakespeare uses euphemisms; mild expressions submitted for something that is thought to be too harsh or direct, in his play such as ‘Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye’. This is convention translates to mean the murder (horrid deed).
Finally, Macbeth changes his mind, and is just upon thinking completely against the whole plot against Duncan, but as he does he is interrupted by his wife, who tells him that Duncan has nearly finished his meal and that he should be there playing the trusting host. Macbeth then comes out with what has been troubling him and tells Lady Macbeth ‘we will proceed no further in this business.’ Lady Macbeth uses the imagery of clothing and turns it against Macbeth, by saying he is acting as if he were drunk when he clothed himself in his hopes of being king, ‘Was the hope drunk wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since?’ She accuses him in a powerful speech about being a coward and that he has broke his ‘enterprise to me’. He goes on to tell him that if she had promised the same to him, before going back on her word she would rather 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.’ Lady Macbeth is showing images of horror and using strong language, in order to persuade Macbeth, and she has seemed to join with evil, like she granted.
She also questions Macbeth’s manhood, and to it she opposes her womanhood in order to embarrass and emotionally blackmail him into doing ‘the deed’. This is what makes him reconsider and to change his mind once again. Macbeth’s earlier decision not to kill Duncan had been change by the scornful attack of his wife. He is still worried about whether they should fail and Lady Macbeth tells him they will not fail if he keeps determined and ambitious. She then tells Macbeth about the plan she has devised, that she will get the guards drunk, so they cannot protect Duncan, and they should be blamed. Macbeth replies with admiration, ‘Bring forth men-children only; for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males.’ The only input from Macbeth is that he goes on to improve the plan by saying that they should use the attendants daggers to do the deed, and then smear Duncan’s blood on the attendants. Lady Macbeth assures him that nobody will dare raise any questions because he and she will ‘make our griefs and clamour roar upon his death’. With that, Macbeth’s courage is up again.
Lady Macbeth’s speech and persuasive attitude, it shows strong will and ambition for him to become king. She even goes as far as blackmailing her husband, showing the audience how cruel she has become, and how strong will is. The fact that she planned the murder shows no signs of her conscience getting in the way of her ambition.
In Act 2, Scene 2, it is nighttime, and Lady Macbeth is waiting for her husband as he murders Duncan. Lady Macbeth seems very anxious and on edge, compared to earlier when she was ruthlessly planning the murder of king Duncan. She now explains that ‘had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t.’ This is the first sign of Lady Macbeth’s conscience, and maybe feeling guilty, since the very first time we met her in the play.
Macbeth appears, and says, ‘I have done the deed’. But though he has done the deed, he can't handle the psychological consequences. He says that he had killed Duncan as he spelt, and sleep is a representation of innocence and peace, and Macbeth believes he has also murdered this. He is terrified at the thought of him not being able to be forgiven for his crimes. Lady Macbeth organised the murder and she has again taken charge, as she ‘drugged the possets’ of the attendants in the outer chamber and she had laid the daggers that awaited Macbeth. All Macbeth was left to do was the deed itself, which we had already learned, that she could not do because of the resemblance Duncan was to her father. Although he played a simple part, Macbeth had forgotten to leave the daggers with the attendants, the supposed murderers. Macbeth is to full of fear, to return back to the chamber, so Lady Macbeth does, smearing the blood on the two attendants.
On her return, Lady Macbeth finds her husband transfixed with thoughts of blood and guilt and once again she takes charge of the situation. Macbeth is obsessed about not being able to pray and speak ‘amen’ because he has broken the main pillar of belief of his time-thou shall not kill, which shows God’s representative on earth. She tells him not to worry and to ‘go get some water, and wash this filthy witness from your hand.’ Imagery is used again, as Shakespeare links blood with guilt, ‘I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal for it must seem their guilt.’
In this scene Lady Macbeth has to take control again, and make sure everything goes to plan in order to succeed. She shows no remorse at all after Macbeth returns. This shows that even at the point of the murder her conscience still does not make an appearance. The only small glimmer of her conscience is the pivotal moment when we learn of Lady Macbeth’s only weakness, which appears to be her family.
The last time hear of Lady Macbeth is during Act 5, Scene 1, where she is reduced to a person who has lost all the evil in her and all that is noticeable is that her conscience had eventually gotten the better of her. It is where she is sleepwalking and she gives away secrets about both the murder of Duncan and Macduff’s family, ‘she has spoken what she should not.’ Lady Macbeth now spends her nights wandering around, a lost soul, afraid of the dark, carrying a light with her everywhere.
The doctor and gentlewoman have found out the information in another theatrical convention, in an overheard conversation, in this case it was to herself. It enables both the audience and other characters to hear information that they would not normally have heard.
Lady Macbeth’s sudden mental collapse is caused by her secret acknowledgement of her share of guilt and expressed once again by a blood image. Lady Macbeth washing her hands to try and rid her hands from the blood and guilt has been an ‘accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have (gentlewoman) known her continue in this a quarter of an hour. Lady Macbeth cannot wash the spots of blood, although after Duncan’s murder she said to Macbeth that ‘a little water’ would wipe away all trace of the murder. At the time of Shakespeare, people thought that witches carried a devil’s mark on their body, so this may be a metaphor of this.
We do not hear of Lady Macbeth again until the news of her suicide. This brings the message that her conscience got the better of her. She ends a very different character to the Lady Macbeth we saw at the start of the play in Act 1, Scene 5. At one time she had nothing but ambition and had nothing but the will for Macbeth to become king. However, as time goes on, Lady Macbeth shows the first signs of her conscience, and there is a sudden dramatic change. She was fighting with her conscience, and blocked it out completely with her will. The last time we see her, she is a nervous wreck, who has troubled dreams and thoughts, thus the battle between her conscience and will are over. What seemed to be a woman full of cruelty and bitterness turned out to give way under the pressure of her conscience.
