In quotation 1, she states that she would kill her own baby if she had sworn to, just as Macbeth should kill Duncan as he swore to. This is so evil because she would kill her own baby that she has cared for 9 months in her womb then take it and kill it as it is innocently looking at her with a smiling face. I don’t think that any mother could ever go so far as to say such things, which shows how evil Lady Macbeth is inside. In another quotation, 2‘Hath it slept since? And wakes it now to look so green and pale at what did it so freely? From this time, such I account thy love.
This quotation is again an extremely harsh persuasive power that she uses to lure her husband into following his ambitions. It means that she would get a divorce from her husband because if he did not go through with the killing, she would think that he did not love her. This is an evil, inhumane way of persuasion and I think that from about this point onwards, Macbeth feels that he has had enough of his wife and begins to think for himself, summing up the good points and the bad points about killing Duncan.
Macbeth can either kill Duncan and become King but feel the guilt of killing in cold blood for the rest of his life, or he can stay a thane and wait to become king, if it will ever happen. Unfortunately for Macbeth, his wife has already given him such strong reasons for killing Duncan that he can no longer see the point in not killing Duncan and waiting to become king because it might mean becoming king after the death of Malcolm and maybe even Donaldbain as well. That would probably make him very old before he becomes king. His wife has almost completely persuaded him that killing Duncan is the right thing and that is exactly what he does.
When Macbeth has killed Duncan he regrets his actions almost straight away and feels that he a weak character. Due to his burning desire for ambition and desire for the fine things in life, he decides that he needs to build up his character if he is going to succeed as king. He first of all starts to ignore his wife and begins thinking about what the three witches had said. He remembers that the witches had said that he would become king but that Banquo’s children would become kings after his death. This upsets him because he knows that no children of his will become king after him. This makes him want to get rid of Banquo and his only son so that he might have a better chance of his children becoming kings after him.
Macbeth, after killing Duncan, is very upset at his own actions. He then takes a look at himself and his character and realises that if he doesn’t build up his character to see through his problems, he is not going to survive. His wife on the other hand begins to falter as she realises that every thing she thought that she would feel, is not coming true. 3‘a little water clears us of this deed.’ How wrong she is. This quotation is a mark of Lady Macbeth’s over confidence and her thoughts of the post mortem feelings. She thinks that it will be all right and she feels that she does not need do anything special to get rid of the bad feelings. When she starts to realise that she cannot get rid of these feelings, she sets herself into panic because she has not prepared herself for these feelings, as she has never experienced them before. Her husband however has huge amounts of experience at first hand killing and knows how it will feel. His wife’s character as a role model deteriorates and he becomes the so-called ‘leader’.
Towards the end of the play, Lady Macbeth begins suffering nervous breakdowns and sleep talking. She becomes a very minor issue from the point where Macbeth refuses to talk to his wife about his future plans. 4’say to the king, I would attend his leisure for a few words’. This quotation states that lady Macbeth now has to ask the servants if she can speak, even to her husband. It shows that the relationship between the Macbeths is almost non-existent and they are not speaking any more.
Lady Macbeth begins to sleep talk, confessing all of her wrongs to the servants. She doesn’t even know that she is doing this. Neither does her husband, the king. The servants get so worried about her that they call a doctor to come and have a look at her condition. Once again she comes clean, confessing every crime that she has ever commited. This is only a short time before Macbeth finds out about the advancing English army, led by Malcolm. When he is preparing for the battle, he hears the sound of women crying. He states the he has almost forgotten the taste of fear. It is then that he realises that he doesn’t know where the cry has come from so he asks his sevant, seyton, where it came from. He replies that the queen is dead. Surprisingly though, he is not too bothered about his wifes death, and so goes into the battle well prepared. It is almost as if he knew that his wife was going to die.