‘Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.’
I think that the audience would have been particularly shocked with the words ‘metaphysical aid’ as these are supernatural forces.
I think that the audience would have been shocked further when Lady Macbeth says:
‘Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here
And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull
Of direst cruelty’
Here Lady Macbeth calls to the evil spirits and asks them to full her with cruelty. This would have suggested that she either was a witch or wanted to become a witch. For the audience at this time this would have been horrifying. The words that Shakespeare uses suggest that Lady Macbeth’s head is full of thoughts of becoming queen, especially when she says, ‘crown’. Also the alliteration in the phrase, ‘to the toe topfull’, stresses the ‘t’ sounds and stresses the syllables of ‘topfull’. Then Shakespeare uses soft ‘s’ sounds, which sound like hissing, suggest Lady Macbeth’s association with evil. The association with evil comes from the story of Adam and Eve. In the Bible Adam and Eve are tempted by a snake to take an apple from the tree. This snake was in fact the devil and this therefore associates a snake (or hissing sounds) with the devil and evil.
I don’t think that Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s relationship is conventional for the time as she seems to have a more male role. She seems stronger than Macbeth and in a way seems to have a power over him. She hasn’t even spoken to him yet and she has already decided what the plan of action is going to be in order for him to become king.
In Act 1, Scene 6, we see Lady Macbeth welcoming Duncan to her house. In this scene she plays the role of the hostess and seems to be extremely evil in this scene. We have just seen her telling Macbeth about the plan to kill Duncan and now she is being really nice to Duncan. This will cause the audience to dislike her as we can see that she is obviously not a very nice person. This shows her as being really two faced and insincere towards Duncan. She is being, as she tells Macbeth to be later on, the innocent flower but the serpent underneath.
In Act 1, Scene 7, we see Macbeth talking to himself and saying that he has no motives or good reasons to kill Duncan. But then Lady Macbeth comes in and uses blackmail and she taunts him to get him to go through with this, and to get her own way.
‘When you durst do it, then you were a man.
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man.’
This suggest that Lady Macbeth thinks that Macbeth is a coward and therefore not a man. This is fiend like as she is blackmailing Macbeth into doing it. She is telling him he is not a man, and to be unmanned was a bad thing in Elizabethan times.
Lady Macbeth, therefore, looks like she is very responsible for Duncan’s death as it wouldn’t have even happened if Lady Macbeth hadn’t persuaded Macbeth to do it. In this scene Macbeth appears to be weak and not the dominant person in this relationship. Also she doesn’t appear to show any recognition that what she is doing is so wrong. I think that Lady Macbeth would shock the audience when she says that she would rather kill her own child than break such a promise as this one.
‘…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 plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn…’
This also shoes Lady Macbeth’s fiend like qualities. This statement would have shocked the audience greatly. She says that she would kill her own baby while it was smiling at her while she was breast feeding it if she had sworn to do so. This is a shocking statement and I think it would have shocked anyone. This truly shows how evil she is. This statement also raises another point of ambiguity. Lady Macbeth says, ‘I have given suck…’ This suggests that she has had a baby but there appears to be no child now. This raises the question of where the child is or if it is even alive.
In Act 2, Scene 2 Lady Macbeth appears to have a few redeeming qualities. The fact that she has had to have a drink because she isn’t feeling brave is a redeeming quality. Also the fact that her thought are flicking around shows her tension and suggests that she is not as impenetrably ruthless as she seems.
‘…He is about it.
The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores.’
This is another redeeming quality as it may shows her feeling guilty. Also when she says:
‘…Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done’t.’
This shows that she does have compassion as she couldn’t kill someone who looked like her father.
Also in this scene when Macbeth comes back from killing Duncan, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have a frantic, disjointed conversation while Macbeth is holding the daggers. This conversation last for thirty seven lines and it is only on the last line that Lady Macbeth realises that Macbeth is still holding the daggers. This shows how panic stricken they are and how neither is thinking clearly. This is a redeeming quality as this suggests that Lady Macbeth feels guilty and worried.
In Act 2, Scene 3, Lady Macbeth faints when she hears that Duncan has been murdered. This is ambiguous as we don’t know if she is actually fainting or whether she is trying to cover up the situation. However this point is ambiguous as there are a number of reasons for why she might have fainted. She could be surprised (or even dismayed) that Macbeth is acting on his own or she might be shocked at Macbeth’s rashness when he kills the guards. Another point is that she might genuinely be upset at Macbeth’s gory description, as she said that Duncan reminded her of her father. The story which is probably more likely is that she is trying to draw attention away from the fact that Macbeth killed the guards to stop him from looking so guilty. This shows how evil she is. She doesn’t want people to focus on it too much and she also doesn’t want to be blamed.
In Act 3, Scene 2, we see that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have drifted apart ad become more distant. Macbeth has become more independent as well. We see this when we see that Macbeth has made plans to kill Banquo, but Lady Macbeth is not involved. This is a redeeming quality as we see that Lady Macbeth has nothing to do with this murder, only they murder of Duncan which was to help her husband anyway. She seems to be affected by this as she asks him what will happen, ‘What’s to be done?’, but Macbeth won’t tell her.
In Act 3, Scene 4, we see the banquet held by Macbeth. Lady Macbeth seems to be different at the start of this scene as Macbeth says, ‘our hostess keeps her state’. These suggest that Lady Macbeth is sitting quietly, away from everyone else. This shows that she is not acting like the conventional hostess. This also ambiguous and suggests that Lady Macbeth may have begun to lose her mind already or she may be feeling isolated as she and Macbeth have drift apart. This could also shows that she is feeling guilty which is a redeeming quality. However, as soon as Macbeth leaves the feast Lady Macbeth goes after him to remind him that he mustn’t leave and that he needs to go and be the host. When Macbeth starts to see Banquo and behave weirdly, Lady Macbeth covers up for him but tells him to stop being stupid and entertain the guests.
‘You have displaced the mirth, broke the good
meeting
With most admired disorder.’
Here she is scorning Macbeth for ruining the banquet and drawing attention to himself.
Lady Macbeth does not seem to feel guilty in this scene but she does seem afraid. I don’t think that she shows signs of feeling in this scene as she still blackmails and taunts Macbeth to get him to sit down and act as though everything is normal.
Act 5, Scene 1 is the last scene that we see with Lady Macbeth in it. I think that Shakespeare uses the sleepwalking in this scene so that all can be revealed by Lady Macbeth to another character. I think that in this scene we begin to feel sorry for Lady Macbeth and I think that she has some redeeming qualities in this scene. One is that she acknowledges that she has done something wrong.
‘What will these hands ne’er be clean?’
This shows that she thinks she has blood on her hands and she wants then to be clean. She obviously feels guilty as she is having nightmares about it all.
Also in this scene Lady Macbeth begins to speak in prose. Shakespeare always makes his main characters speak in verse but Lady Macbeth no longer speaks in verse. This shows that she is mad and is no longer important to the play.
Also I think another redeeming quality is that she seems to feel responsible for all the deaths throughout the play, even tough she was only really responsible for one of the deaths, Duncan’s. I think that in this scene we begin to feel sorry for Lady Macbeth and like her a bit more. This scene shows that she does have redeeming qualities and that she isn’t completely evil.
I don’t think that lady Macbeth is a ‘fiend like queen’. I think she is evil but has many redeeming qualities which make her seem a lot better as you go through the play. I also think that the fact that we see more of Lady Macbeth than Malcolm does mean we have the opportunity to see these redeeming qualities whereas Malcolm might not. I think that the moral of this play is don’t kill the king. It is not honourable or good and it will come back to haunt you.
