She tells Macbeth that he is too full of human kindness. She wants him to kill people. She tries persuading him into killing Duncan. This shows the audience that Lady Macbeth is more powerful then Macbeth –at this moment. This shows us that their relationship is totally different to normal people because in normal people, there is love and if they do something wrong or evil, the other person will say it’s not their fault and will make them not do it again, but with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, things are a little different. Macbeth does something bad, for e.g. he kills people bloodily, and when he tells this to Lady Macbeth, she says he is too kind. He should kill them even more badly.
In her Raven Soliloquy, she says “the raven himself is a hoarse”. The raven stands for death. She’s talking to the spirits and she tells them to unsex her, which means that she wants to be more of a man. She is also in control of the spirits because she says “come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here”. The “come” is a command and she is commanding the spirits.
However, in modern audience, we are use to this stuff from watching movies, but a Shakespearian audience will think of things a little different. They are used to seeing people making love and 1 partner telling the other partner to calm down, but when they see Macbeth, they will feel confused.
The Theme that can link to Lady Macbeth is betrayal because is betraying Duncan by persuading Macbeth to kill Duncan and be the king and being 2 different things at the same time.
Throughout act 1 scene 7, Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth and she is challenging him. One technique she uses is exaggeration. She uses this when she says “I would, while it was smiling in my face in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I sworn as you have done to this”. She uses this technique and says this to Macbeth, so he will promise to kill the king.
I think the most powerful technique Lady Macbeth uses is the Juxtaposition. She compares innocence with evil. She uses words such as “Smiling” and “boneless” which suggests innocent, goodness and weak. Then she says “dashed the brains out” which makes the evil more desolating.
Shakespeare made Lady Macbeth talk like this to show us how big an influence Lady Macbeth is to Macbeth by persuading him to kill Duncan.
In act 2 scene 2, Lady Macbeth is still in charge of Macbeth. She still gives him orders, “go get some water” and “go carry them and smear with the sleepy grooms with blood”. After the murder of Duncan, Macbeth became so weak that Lady Macbeth had to clean up Macbeths mess. We know that Macbeth says “I’ll go no more. I am afraid to think what I have done; look on’t again, I dare not” which suggests his scared.
I think lady Macbeth has changed throughout this scene because she’s gone a bit softer then before. She says “had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t” which means that lady Macbeth would have killed Duncan, but he looked like her dad.
In the ghost scene (act 2 scene 3) we don’t see much of Lady Macbeth because Macbeth took her role of bring evil. He is the new lady Macbeth. When we do see her, she changed from before because now she is asking for help. She says “help me, hence ho” to Macbeth.
In act 5 scene 1, Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking. Shakespeare made her sleepwalk because this shows us that Lady Macbeth is feeling his guilt and she can’t sleep because of the guilt.
In act 5 scene 5, Lady Macbeths dies. Macbeth doesn’t really care about this because he says “she should have died hereafter”. He doesn’t care now because he has become crazy with power and royalty and he took the lead of Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth may now be symbolising guilt and pity for Duncan because she killed herself. It was because of the guilt that made her kill herself. A modern audience’s view will be different to Shakespearian audience because the modern audience are used to seeing these kinds of things.
Why is Lady Macbeth a character in Macbeth? She is the centre of every evil and bad thing Macbeth does. She is like a catalyst, without it the chemicals will take its time reacting. Without Lady Macbeth, Macbeth would have had to be king after Duncan died and that could take its time. She is also a strong and determined person. She is evil because she says that she would have dashed out a baby’s brain even if the baby was smiling at her, but she is not pure evil because guilt got the better of her and she killed herself.
What kind of a response did Shakespeare want the audience to have towards her? Shakespeare made Lady Macbeth a character in Macbeth so he can show people that they should never judge a book by its cover. She looks innocent, but theirs an evil beast inside her. She told Macbeth to be like her. She told him “look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent underneath it” the way Shakespeare presents lady Macbeth tells people to never underestimate a woman!!!
