What are our first impressions of Lady Macbeth and how does Shakespeare create them in the audiences mind in Act 1?

Shakespeare shows the audience that Lady Macbeth does not have the moral standards of most people. Very briefly in scene 6, we see her basically lie to Duncan saying that it is her duty to be hospitable since she and her husband owe so much to their king. Straight away it is obvious that she doesn’t mind lying to someone important to deceive them and make them feel welcomed when really, his murderers lie in wait. Later on, in scene 7, Macbeth is by himself considering his choice to kill the king and whether or not to actually do it or not. He fears that his actions will “return to plague th’ inventor’; he has no other reason to kill Duncan than his, or his wife’s own ambition. This short piece of writing tells us that when on his own, Macbeth’s thoughts are actually morally right and he does have some sanity. This is when Lady Macbeth enters the scene only to find out her husband has had second thoughts about the murder; of which her reaction is pure anger. She accuses him of being a coward and questions his manhood, ‘When you durst do it, then you were a man’. Usually (and especially in the days of Shakespeare) women were looked upon as the lesser person in a relationship. So here we have the Lady telling Macbeth what to do, and almost threatening him which was unheard of. She describes how the murder is going to work; she wants to drug the chamberlains to frame them into making other people think it was them. Not only is she going to kill Duncan, but she is also theoretically going to kill the assistants. If found guilty, they will most probably be sentenced to execution; so her moral values are also put into turmoil. She obviously does not care about the lives of these innocent people.

Almost automatically, Macbeth ‘suddenly’ begins to agree with Lady Macbeth. He is astonished at the brilliance and daring of her plan and tells his wife that her “undaunted mettle” makes him hope that she will only give birth to male children. From here, Macbeth proceeds to commit the vicious murder. Throughout the play, whenever Macbeth shows signs of faltering, Lady Macbeth implies that he is less than a man, intimidating him and bullying him into decisions. He sees the Lady’s masculinity as heroic (this is why he seems to rather do everything she tells him to), whilst she sees this masculinity for dark and cruel ways which for some reason he cannot see. Even though when Duncan is dead Macbeth will be the Thane, Lady Macbeth seems more concerned about power.

Morality is shown a lot in these few scenes; although Macbeth knows he is doing the wrong thing in killing Duncan, he still does it even though he will probably reap the consequences. It is Lady Macbeth that controls the second half of this act however, and ends up bullying Macbeth into making his decision based on her own selfish ambition. He can not seem to stand up for himself, through all the manipulative speech she uses, and this is what eventually contributes to Macbeth’s downfall.