With particular focus on Act 1, Scene 7, explain Lady Macbeths role in Macbeth.

Authors Avatar

With particular focus on Act 1, Scene 7, explain Lady Macbeth’s role in ‘Macbeth’.

        

        Lady Macbeth is widely conceived to be one of, if not the, pivotal character in ‘Macbeth’, mainly because of her roles and influence in the murder of King Duncan and the resultant murders that followed. Her progression throughout the play also plays a significant role in the plot’s development, particularly her mental health that, paradoxically, appears to regress. Lady Macbeth seems to possess several roles in ‘Macbeth’, the most prominent of which is her role as the ‘driving force’ behind Macbeth’s floundering ambition to kill Duncan and become king of Scotland. However, she also possesses several other roles in the play’s advancement, such as her apparent semblance to an ‘anti-woman’ and also the potential that Lady Macbeth could have something to do with the supernatural.

The first role that Lady Macbeth plays in ‘Macbeth’ is that of the creator the encouragement, stimulation and inspiration that drove Macbeth to kill King Duncan.  The plot to murder King Duncan in order that Macbeth become king of Scotland was thought up by Lady Macbeth shortly after she receives a letter from Macbeth informing her about his meeting with the three witches and their predictions that came from it.  This seemed to spark Lady Macbeth’s inner ambition and greed to become powerful and also provoked her into persuading Macbeth into killing King Duncan, and she does this in a number of manipulative and calculating ways. The main way in which she does this is by mocking Macbeth and calling him a wimp, for example Lady Macbeth says, ‘What beast was’t then that made you break this enterprise to me?’ she is talking here of Macbeth’s refusal to murder Duncan, ‘When you durst do it, then you were a man’. This temporarily demoralises Macbeth, making him feel less of a man and also that his wife is being more courageous and noble than he is, even to the extent that she would rather kill her own child than break her prior promise of killing Duncan. This clearly worries Macbeth, and he rebuts in retaliation, claiming that he is more of a man than Lady Macbeth thinks he is and continues to say that he is more than ready to kill Duncan, for example he says, ‘I am settled and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time with fairest show, false face must hide what the false heart doth know’.  The second way in which Lady Macbeth proselytizes Macbeth into killing Duncan is to emasculate herself, once again making Macbeth seem like less of a man, for example, as mentioned earlier, Lady Macbeth says ‘I would, while it was smiling 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.’ This graphic imagery instils fear and shock into both Macbeth and the audience at the time, especially coming from a woman. As before, this spurs Macbeth into revealing his masculine side as his attempt to appear the alpha male in front of his wife and also into killing King Duncan. This shows Macbeth’s weak character very evidently but also shows how easily manipulated he is by Lady Macbeth. The next role of Lady Macbeth is her suggested emasculation.

Join now!

        Throughout the play Lady Macbeth talks openly about her unwillingness to mother children and also of her desire to be a man. This is most prevalent in Act 1 Scene 7 where she boasts her masculine attributes. Just before Act 1 Scene 7 she also says the famous line ‘unsex me here’ and in Act 1 Scene 5 she says ‘stop up th’ access and passage to remorse’, referring to her desire for her menstruation to cease. However, it seems apparent that Lady Macbeth doesn’t just crave a change of gender, but that she also craves to quench her ever-increasing ...

This is a preview of the whole essay