I think that ‘Lady Macbeth’ is a very devious, ambitious and if she wants something badly enough she would go out of her way to get it. ‘King Duncan’ then decides he is going to visit Macbeth and his wife at their castle. As soon as ‘Lady Macbeth’ finds out that Duncan is visiting she says “Never shall the sun that morrow see”. This tells us that she is thinking how she and her husband are going to kill Duncan. She sees this visit as a opportunity to help her with what she is planning she immediately invites evil spirits into her body” Come you spirits, that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe topfull of the direst cruelty, make thick my blood, stop th access and passage to remorse”.
She is asking the spirits to take away her femininity and to make her feel no remorse in the deeds she is about to do. For an audience watching the play, in Shakespeare time this part would have been very frightening and shocking, as witchcraft was seen to be a very real thing in those days.
“Look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under’T”. ‘Lady Macbeth’ tells Macbeth to put on a front, to act the innocent yet be the evil and scheming under it. This is where one of the main themes appears which deception is and Macbeth finally agrees with his wife. ‘Lady Macbeth’ then gets excited and says. “To after ever is to fear leave the rest to me”. ‘Lady Macbeth’ takes charge of this situation which would have also been very unusual as women of Shakespears time barely had rights and were basically their husband’s property.
After their decision Macbeth starts to have doubts about killing the King. ‘Lady Macbeth’ immediately starts to persuade her husband out of his doubts “Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since? And wakes now to look so green and pale at what did so freely?”
‘Lady Macbeth’ taunts her husband here she accuses him of being drunk when he agreed to the murder and that he has lost his nerve and is trying to back down. “Art though afeared to be the same in thine own act and valour, as thou art in desire?” here ‘Lady Macbeth’ is calling her husband a coward. She also asks him is he afraid to carry out his own dream. “When you durst do it then you were a man and to me more than what you were you would be so much more the man”. She is using reverse physiology here telling Macbeth he will be more of man if he kills ‘King Duncan’.
“I have given suck and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me, I would while it was my smiling face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done this”. ‘Lady Macbeth’ is using desperate measures to shock Macbeth into action. She is saying here that she would rather kill her own child than break a promise. From all the different ways that she tried to persuade Macbeth into killing Duncan, it seems that she was desperate for Macbeth to become King. It looked like she wants Macbeth to become King more than he wants it himself. She is pushing him into things because she wants power and riches; I think this is very fiend-like.
‘Lady Macbeth’ was thinking of killing the King herself but couldn’t do it, she says, “had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t”. I think that shows us that she is not as evil as she appears and that she still has human feelings. In this stage of the play she does not seem as ‘fiend-like’.
Macbeth finally kills Duncan but after doing it he feels panicked and comes across to the audience as guilty, he cannot believe he just killed the King. Although ‘Lady Macbeth’ stays quite calm here. Macbeth panics and says, “I had most need of blessing and amen? “Stuck in my throat”. ‘Lady Macbeth’ again tries to calm him down; she says “These deeds must not be thought after these ways so, it will make us mad”. It is shocking for her to say this as she eventually does go mad, but after the murder she feels no guilt. “A little clears us of the deed”. She seems so sure and confident that her plans are perfect and no one will ever suspect them for Duncan’s murder.
The day after the murder Macbeth is very much so on edge while ‘Lady Macbeth’ is still staying quire calm. Two of the now dead Kings, generals enter the Kings chamber, in Macbeth’s castle, along with Macbeth. As a cover up Macbeth kills the royal guards, ‘Lady Macbeth’ and her husband set it up so it looked like it was the guards who murdered Duncan. After Macbeth killed the guards in a ‘fit-of-rage’, he then makes a speech to explain why he killed them. We can tell that he is over reacting and you could tell that something was bothering him. At this point ‘Lady Macbeth’ faints; I think this is to divert attention away from her husband. I think she feels if carries on the way he is doing people will start to become more suspicious, or even worse they might get caught.
Banquo A friend of Macbeths suspects that Macbeth killed Duncan, so Macbeth had Banquo and his son murdered. At the banquet ‘Lady Macbeth’ is again still staying quite calm, she is trying to act as if nothing has happened. Macbeth is acting quite different; it is obvious that something is wrong with him. He sees the ghost of Banquo sitting in his chair and he becomes hysterical. Macbeth starts talking to the ghost and his guests think he is going mad, they think he is talking to himself. ‘Lady Macbeth’ yet again covers for him; she says he is ill, that he takes fits and has been this way from childhood. Macbeth keeps this behaviour up and ‘Lady Macbeth’ starts to get worried, eventually the guests all go home.
After the banquet the last time we see ‘Lady Macbeth’ is when she is sleepwalking. She is repeatedly washing her hands and saying “Out I say! One, two. Why then ‘tis time to do’t hell is murky fit, my lord, fie a soldier and afeared? What need we fear? Who knows it? When none can call our power to account? Ye who would have though the old man to have so much blood in him?” she is admitting to Duncan’s murder in her sleep without realising it, she says, “The Thane of fire had a wife. Where is he now?” She talks about how Macbeth killed Macduff’s family. He did this because Macbeth had gone to talk with the three witches again, they tell him to be aware of Macduff. Macbeth later hears that Macduff has fled to England, so Macbeth had Lady Macduff and her children murdered. I think that this meant that Macbeth was trying to scare ‘Macduff’ into not telling anyone what he and ‘Lady Macbeth’ had done. “Here’s the smell of blood still, all the perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten this little hand”. In her sleep Lady Macbeth thinks her hand smells like and they are stained. I think that this is her guilt showing in her sub-conscious. The audience start to feel sympathetic towards Lady Macbeth, all the pressure of trying to make sure she and her husband don’t get caught finally she has gone mad. This is ironic as earlier on in the play Lady Macbeth had control. The next time we here of ‘Lady Macbeth” she is dead, we get the impression she killed herself.
So the question is ‘Is Lady Macbeth a Fiend-Like-Queen? I think she definitely is at the start of the play. She knows what she wants and will do anything to get it. She is ruthless and we can tell that if she is willing to let evil spirits into her body then she is most certainly ‘fiend-like’ at the start of the play. Although as the play goes on we see a different side of Lady Macbeth, she starts to panic and realises that her being so fiend-like has caused her husband to become the same way. They eventually become distant; at the end of the play he works on his own and needs no encouragement from her. She becomes vulnerable, less ‘fiend-like’ and eventually insane.