“Lady Macbeth is a fiend like queen.”
I agree that lady Macbeth is a fiend like queen, as Malcolm describes her in Act five, scene nine, line thirty-five. A definition for Fiend-like is evil, wicked or villainous. She starts out as a villain, who is capable of evil. However, as Macbeth grows more evil and ruthless, she sees that her ways were wrong.
Her evil ways are revealed when she receives a letter from her husband. I see from the letter that Macbeth treats her as an equal, "My dearest partner of greatness", and that he is pleased to tell her of the prophecy, from the three witches, that she will become queen. At this point of Act 1 scene 5, there is no mention of murder. After reading the letter, Lady Macbeth in a soliloquy thinks about Macbeth being too compassionate to make his ambition become reality. We see her malicious determination and that she wishes he could be more ruthless and callous. She goes on to wonder if Macbeth is “too full o' th' milk of humane kindness”. This shows that she is not convinced that Macbeth would be capable of being as vindictive as she would like him to be, and is determined to change Macbeth’s state of mind.
When Macbeth enters act 1 scene 5, he talks to his wife. Lady Macbeth concisely tells him of her plan, warning him that to “beguile the time” he has to “look like the time”. She is determined to appear strong towards Macbeth.
In Act 1 scene 7, Lady Macbeth uses her dominance to persuade Macbeth not to back down on the plan. She asks him “What beast was't then” that made him “break this enterprise” to her. To persuade Macbeth she asks him why he’s breaking his promise to her, as to guilt trip him. She knows that he sees her as an equal and that he wouldn't want to upset her. She says how she would never break a promise to him and goes on to say she has “given suck” and knows “how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me” and that she would have “dashed the brains out” . By making the point that she would have rather killed her child than to quit on the plan she is showing how capable of evil she is, to make her feel less feminine, and more masculine, as to give her the sense that she is competent enough to fulfill her plan. It could also be said that she was just trying to surprise Macbeth into realizing how determined she is. She calls him a coward, which bothered him, as he is known for his bravery, not cowardice. She asks him if he would “live a coward in thine own esteem?” She uses love, or his lack of it for her, to persuade him to go through with the plan.
