“Yet do I fear thy nature
Is too full o’ the milk of human kindness”
and so he has to be either filled with supernatural evil or less than human in order to commit such a horrible crime,
“Thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it; what thou wouldst
highly,
That wouldst wrongly win; thou holily;”
She knows that he has already thought about it, and has rejected the idea, and we know she is correct because the soliloquy of Macbeth earlier on in the lay supports this. The tone of both soliloquies are exclamatory and they create a weird and supernatural atmosphere which may contribute to in the audience’s response to Lady Macbeth as an essentially evil woman.
Lines 17-19, have a tremendous effect on the audience, as they see the plot of the play. In this soliloquy, the audience see Lady Macbeth as a person with authority and at this point may see her as being evil. We can also see that she is ambitious because she is determined that her husband will be king, whatever the cost; strong-minded as she takes control of the situation; loyal as she is faithful to her husband; decisive as she has a positive attitude to the situation; and ruthless because she plans to kill Duncan.
Her second soliloquy is very dramatic because she evokes much evil in this part of the scene and the audience may indeed feel that she is carried away by her own imagination. The vivid imagery in this speech is all associated with evil, and so this helps to create a powerful response in the audience. The imagery of the raven is vivid as the raven is a sign/omen of death to come and illfortune. The word, ‘hoarse’ reflects the croaking of the raven which is unpleasant, just like the death of Duncan will be gruesome,
“The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.”
The audience respond to this extraordinary speech with great amazement. She wants none of her female characteristics to prevent her from becoming evil. She pleads for the worst kind of cruelty possible and wants to be made insensitive to stop her from feeling guilty or from having any second thoughts that might interrupt with her murderous plan,
“Unsex me here...
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose”
In the dialogue between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Macbeth does not say much which reinforces (the audience’s impression) that Lady Macbeth is dominated by her imagination. She may appear highly- , even unstable.
The audience may think after seeing this scene, that she is evil but they will certainly ponder upon this as her character develops. She has many great qualities, and depending on how the actress plays her part, the audience may be impressed by them, despite the evil she creates or they may choose to dislike her character all together. In any case, she will certainly have created a powerful impression, and the audience, while finding her language and behaviour horrific, may yet reluctantly admire her sheer force of character.
In Act I Scene 7, the audience see a considerable further development of the character of Lady Macbeth. The structure is balanced as both parts (two in all) are in blank verse. It consists of Macbeth’s soliloquy and his dialogue with Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth has to persuade her husband to go ahead with the murder as he has doubts about killing Duncan. It does not take her long to convince him to go ahead with the original plan, showing that she knows how to control her husband and confirming the closeness of their relationship; her taunting shows how very well she knows him.
Macbeth’s only reason why he should commit Duncan’s murder; is ambition. His wife cleverly forces him to do the deed by targeting his weak points. The audience would expect that Lady Macbeth will have a lot of persuading to do but it only takes her a short time to change his mind, showing the audience that she is persuasive and cunning in the way she actually persuades him. She shows a clever grasp of argument, a shrewd perception of his character, and cunning means of gaining her own way. Macbeth leaves Duncan unattended at the feast and when Lady Macbeth asks him why he has left, he tells her that he does not want to go ahead with the murder;
“We will proceed no further in this business:”
Lady Macbeth becomes furious and her derisive ways soon make Macbeth change his mind. For example, she cleverly blackmails Macbeth by saying that if he doesn’t murder Duncan, then he must not love her,
“From this time
Such I account thy love.”
She uses an evil image (which echoes the feminine characteristics which she uses in Scene 5) to persuade him to murder in comparing his weakness with her own resolution:
“I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done this”
This vicious image is very powerful as she says she is much braver than he is and uses her sexual allure to taunt him. The audience may indeed see her as a fiend-like queen in this scene (and in the previous scene, which I have studied); but from now on the audience may query this response as her character develops into a more tragic figure.
So, in her first speech, she accuses Macbeth of three things, these are that he is a coward; accuses him of being drunk when he promised to murder Duncan; and accuses him of being squeamish which is ironic as we are presented with Macbeth as a great hero at the beginning of the play. At the end of her second speech, Macbeth has been convinced. This effect may play upon the audience’s response as they might think that she is a person of strong character which can be admired by the people who know her best.
In her third speech she tells Macbeth how they will kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth keeps her word because she did promise to come up with a plot which confirms the audience’s view that she is loyal and unfailing. She is not fiend-like all the time as the performance has to be psychologically convincing. Macbeth was not just persuaded by his wife with her force, there must be other factors which have made him change his mind. For example, the lines may have been delivered in a sexually provocative way. The director may choose a young actress with attractive looks to contribute to this effect.
Act II Scene 2 falls into three sections which are all in blank verse - Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy, her dialogue with Macbeth which includes Duncan’s murder; the dialogue between them both which is interrupted by the knocking at the gate.
At the beginning of this scene, Lady Macbeth waits for her husband, who comes from Duncan’s room with bloody hands. This is the first scene, where the audience sees another side to her. She no longer appears to be in control. She appears to be frightened and nervous as she drinks some alcohol to ‘strengthen’ herself. This is ironic as she has told Macbeth that he needs encouragement to kill Duncan which she will supply.
“That which hath made them drunk hath made me
bold”
Lady Macbeth is also very ‘jumpy’ which the audience does not expect from her behaviour in the previous scenes. The slightest noise makes her anxious,
“Hark
Peace!
It was the owl that shrieke’d.”
because she feels that the deed is not done. She also for the first time displays some tenderness: she says she would have done the deed herself, had it not have been that Duncan resembled her father. This shows that she has not been completely successful in suppressing her human and feminine qualities. She still has some feelings. Indeed if she was totally evil, why did Macbeth marry her?
“Had he not resembled
My father as he slept I had done’t.”
In this part of the scene, the audience can see that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth support and comfort each other but as the play progresses we see that the murder actually destroys their relationship. Lady Macbeth shows her affection as she calls him,
“My husband”
The short staccato words and phrases reflect the nervousness of the couple. Macbeth is deeply disturbed by what he has just done and so Lady Macbeth reassures him, but he still carries on in describing the murder scene and his premonition of never sleeping again. Macbeth claims he heard the guards talking, but Lady Macbeth tries to calm him down by using her skilful tactics. This causes contrasts in their conversation, Macbeth says,
“But they did say their prayers, and address’d them
Again to sleep”
This contrasts with Lady Macbeth’s reply,
“There are two lodg’d together”
She makes the ironic comment,
“These deeds must not be thought
After these ways, so, it will make mad.”
later in the play it is she who loses her sanity. Her brief responses here suggest to the audience that she is having second thoughts and shows the audience an interesting development in her character. Indeed, this scene is ‘the turning point’ in the audience’s response to Lady Macbeth.
Towards the end of the scene, she ‘pulls herself together’ and returns to the dominant role, we were once presented with. She makes a cruel pun about smearing the guards’ with blood so that they will be ‘gilt’ and ‘guilty’,
“If he do bleed
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms’ withal
For it must seem their guilt.”
The imagery of water is used,
“A little water clears us of this deed;”
which is highly ironic as in the sleepwalking scene, we see that no matter how much water she uses, she will never be able to wash away the blood, she imagines on her hands. The murderers are disturbed with the knocking at the door which releases the tension which has been built up.
From this scene, the audience begin to see a totally different side to her character. There are many images in this scene; hands, blood, hell, darkness, courage, fear, power and her father which all evoke the evil explored in the play.
At the of the banquet scene (Act III Scene 4) the audience will have developed a more ambivalent view of Lady Macbeth’s character. In Act II Scene 3, she fainted but they may be uncertain whether this was pretend. The audience already know that their relationship is slowly diminishing as Macbeth does not tell her about his plans to kill Duncan; whereas before everything they planned was shared with each other. The audience can see that the banquet scene builds up two impressions of her increasing vulnerability and the destruction of their relationship. The structure is fairly balanced as all three sections are in blank verse; the welcoming of the guests, the appearance of the ghost and the dialogue between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
As it is a banquet, the appropriate stage props for a banquet are essential (i.e. table, chairs etc.) Macbeth and Lady Macbeth should wear crowns as they are now king and queen and this will emphasise their newly enhanced status and power.
The ghost of Banquo appears, but only Macbeth can see it. Lady Macbeth and the other guests are startled by Macbeth’s strange behaviour. Lady Macbeth has to take control of the situation because she fears that Macbeth may reveal that they killed Duncan. She covers up his actions by telling the other Lords that he occasionally has strange turns:
“The fit is momentary; upon a thought
He will again be well.”
She tells them not to pay attention to him, which is clever because she does not want him to reveal their secret.
“If much you note him,
You shall offend him and extend his passion.”
In their dialogue, Lady Macbeth shows her frustration and growing confusion because she cannot understand Macbeth because she can not see the ghost herself, which also reflects that their relationship is slowly deteriorating. She tries to make him pull himself together by taunting him as she did in Act I Scene 7, but we see that these same tactics no longer work:
“What! quite unmann’d in folly?”
She does this because she is frightened for her husband, hoping that he might ‘snap out of it’. Lady Macbeth could also feel embarrassed as her husband is acting in such a strange way in front of all the Lords. When the ghost vanishes, Macbeth tries to put on a good face for his guests, but the ghost reappears and Macbeth falls back into his terrified response. Lady Macbeth becomes more and more frightened for her husband and is worried that he might lash out or reveal all. She becomes helpless and distressed, so, out of sheer desperation, she tells her guests to leave. When they have gone, the audience might have expected her to be furious with Macbeth, but she is not. She hardly says anything, which shows that she may show some regret (of the murder) and certainly shows exhaustion over what had just happened, and the little that she says is said in a gentle manner. Her final line to Macbeth, also applies to herself:
“You lack the season of all natures, sleep.”
The audience may have disliked her at first because she appeared to be monstrously evil. But as her character has developed, the audience is beginning to develop a more complex response to her character and from this point on in the play it becomes increasingly difficult not to feel some pity for her.
Act V Scene 1 (the sleepwalking scene) is the last scene in which Lady Macbeth appears. The language of this scene contrasts with the other scenes because she speaks in prose, which reflects her lack of control. In the previous scenes, Lady Macbeth in control was one of her main qualities, but here she is the opposite and the audience will feel much sympathy for this tragic figure. The scene has three parts; the two dialogues between the doctor and the gentlewoman and the section involving the sleepwalking of Lady Macbeth.
It is night, so the lighting will be sublimed, reflecting the sorrowful nature of the scene. She enters with a candle which is a significant prop in this scene as it reflects her fear of the dark and contrasts with the previous scenes where she evoked evil and darkness;
“Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, ‘Hold, hold!’ (Act I Scene 5)
This will also build up their sympathy for her, seeing such a pathetic, tragic figure. Her vulnerability will be further emphasised by her much changed appearance and that she wears only her night gown.
The opening lines of the scene give the audience important information about how Lady Macbeth has been behaving and so it prepares them for her entrance.
Lady Macbeth enters alone which signals that she is isolated from humanity and solitary. She dreams that she and her husband are murdering Duncan which reflects that it is ‘playing on her mind’. The point of her isolation may have begun when she fainted in Act II Scene 3. The audience may have believed that this was a mock faint but this may have been the point at which she shows the first signs of her distress.
The Doctor draws the audience’s attention to Lady Macbeth as he says;
“What is it she does now?”
There are many images in this scene, such as water, blood, hands and darkness. She is obsessed with her bloodstained hands and repeatedly scrubs them with water but no matter how much water she uses, it is not enough to wash away the blood which she imagines on her hand (i.e. her guilt). In the murder scene she told Macbeth that:
“A little water cleans us of this deed,”
which is ironic as she says in this sleepwalking scene:
“all the perfumes
Of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
The image of blood is used to symbolise her guilty conscience. The phrase ‘this little hand’ also conveys the impression that she is an innocent female which she fiercely denied in the Act I Scene 5 “unsex me her” speech. This may build up the audience’s sympathy for her. Her weeping shows her despair and contrasts with the early scenes where she was once full of words.
The Doctor is bewildered but distressed at the same time and observes that she has more of ‘the divine’ (spiritual help) than ‘the physician’ (medical help). His warning that she is at the point of suicide underlines the terrible depth of despair to which Lady Macbeth has been reduced.
The Doctor’s final speech makes the audience feel more sympathetic for Lady Macbeth especially when he says,
“God, God forgive us all! Look after her.”
The audience’s response to the development of the character of Lady Macbeth will change considerably as the play progresses. At first she appears to be grotesquely evil, so the audience may have been repelled by her character (although she did have many great qualities, e.g. she was loyal). However, as her character developed through the course of the play, the audience’s response will change dramatically. After the murder of Duncan, there is a gradual deepening in her character as she seemed to be more nervous, more frightened (of evil), but most of all we could see that her guilty conscience starting to unfold. The language of Lady Macbeth may have contributed to this effect as at first she uses evil and vicious images to create an evil atmosphere but towards the end of the play, her use of language creates pity for her. I don’t think the play would of had much affect if she was played as a fiend-like queen throughout the whole play, nor if she was presented as a pitiful character. Despite her evil ways at the beginning of the play, I think the audience may see Lady Macbeth as a tragic figure and may pity her because her terrible crime has led to such devastation. She can be most successfully portrayed as a woman of exceptional qualities like by tragically and deliberately misusing them destroyed herself and all that she held dear.
