Lady Macbeth’s character can seem to have links with the theme of witches and evil in the play. When she hears that Duncan is coming to the castle, she speaks as if she is casting a spell, she says: ‘Come you Spirits, That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty’. She is asking for spirits to change her, as in a spell. This promotes the idea of the evil side to her character even more at the start of the play. When Macbeth arrives, she suggests that they carry out the murder that night and she tells him that until that time, they must outwardly be welcoming and friendly but to be sly and cunning inside, she says, ‘look like th’ innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t’. She is also very overpowering, she is talking to Macbeth when she says: ‘Leave all the rest to me.’ This also shows that she is the organiser and the ‘doer’ in the relationship.
When Duncan arrives at the castle, Lady Macbeth has no trouble hiding her true thoughts and easily portrays the hospitable, ladylike character that she is mistaken for. This is because she is a very good liar and is able to stifle her conscience well. This may be due to the enchantment that she cast previously!
In Act1, Scene 7, Lady Macbeth has to persuade Macbeth to go ahead with the murder of Duncan as he changes his mind, saying that since Duncan has honoured him recently he must not cast aside his new honours so soon. He thinks that ‘He’s here in double trust; First, as I am his kinsman, and his subject, Strong both against the deed: then, as his host, Who should against his murtherer shut the door’ which he says in one of his soliloquies. These are all very good arguments from Macbeth as to why he shouldn’t kill Duncan; Lady Macbeth will have to be convincing and enthusiastic in her contention to be able to persuade him to change his mind about this. She is a very ambitious woman and she is also a very clever woman and so is able to use her convincing language and ambitious personality to persuade Macbeth to carry out the murder. She tells him that she would take a child who was feeding from her breast and dash its brains out if she had gone back on something that she had sworn to Macbeth has. ‘The babe that milks me/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’. This is very emotive and I find it incomprehensible that she would actually do this. This shows also that she is a cold, un-motherly person who cares more about her own success than the feelings and welfare of others.
Lady Macbeth is also very confident, when Macbeth’s assertion diminishes and he asks: ‘If we should fail?’ Lady Macbeth is so enthusiastic and determined, she tells him that they will not fail and explains how her plan to murder Duncan will work.
Lady Macbeth does not appear again until Act 2, Scene 2 when they are about to murder Duncan. Here she is not as strong willed and determined as she has been seen before, now her conscience and warm heartedness is starting to show. However, the first speech of the scene is her being very bold and confident she is also confident that she is better off than everyone else and that she is the only one for whom the alcohol has brought on a positive change in her nature, she says : ‘That which hat made them drunk, hath made me bold: What hath quench’d them, hath given me fire…’
I think that this speech is Lady Macbeth trying to give herself the courage to carry out the deed before the murder, which would be an incredibly difficult thing for anyone to do. This may be because she has already a noticed a change in herself before the murder and is worried that she may not be able to accomplish it.
This is proven when she returns to Macbeth and explains to him that she could not do it because Duncan reminded her of her father. She says: ‘Alack, I am afraid they have awak’d, And ‘tis not done: th’ attempt, and not the deed, Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had don’t.’
Also, when Macbeth returns from Duncan’s chamber, he asks Lady Macbeth if she heard anything whilst he was gone, she says that she heard the owl scream and the crickets’ cry. This is another example of her feelings of guilt as she had obviously been very on-edge and her listening had pricked up and she had noticed these very quiet and probably distant sounds of the owl and the crickets. The owl is a sign of evil and death, which represents Lady Macbeth’s feelings about the murder. Another sign that they are both uneasy is the discussion that follows with very short lines in question and reply.
Nevertheless, Lady Macbeth manages this time to oppress these feelings of guilt and anxiety. When Macbeth is telling her about his own shame, she tells him to try and forget about it and that he should go and put the daggers back in Duncan’s room, to clean the blood off his hands and to hide the evidence. Macbeth tells her : ‘Glamis hath murther’d Sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more: Macbeth shall sleep no more.’ By this, he means that now he has killed a man in his sleep, he will no longer be able to sleep at night because he will feel so guilty and possibly scared that someone will come and kill him in the night too, as revenge for him murdering Duncan.
Lady Macbeth tries to prevent these thoughts of Macbeths. She says: ‘You do unbend you noble strength, to think So brain sickly of things: go get some water, And wash this filthy witness from your hand. Why did you bring these daggers from the place? They must lie there. This shows that she is still organising the whole affair and that she is still as cold hearted as ever which is why she tells Macbeth not to think about it, she believes that this should be simple for him as she finds it so easy.
When Macbeth tells her that
