When Lady Macbeth greets her husband she express’s feeling that he looks guilty:
‘Your face my thane is a book where men
May read strange matters.’
She thinks people will be able to tell what he is thinking by looking at his faces. She uses the imagery of a book to express this, saying that his face is like a book. She wants his to hide his dark thoughts:
‘Look like th’innocent flower
But be the serpent under’t.’
She wants him to be welcoming to Duncan to hide his true intentions. She uses the imagery of a serpent to represent his evil, and the image of a flower to show how he should conceal it. Serpents have been thought to represent evil since ancient times, and it was a serpent that tempted Adam and Eve in the Bible.
This scene really shows us Lady Macbeth’s dark and wicked side. Some of her imagery is terrifying. She could even be compared to the witches we have seen previously in the play. To end the scene she says ‘Leave all the rest to me.’ She is hinting that she will arrange the killing of Duncan. Throughout the scene Lady Macbeth uses double meanings to see how Macbeth will react to the idea of killing the king, for example ‘He that’s coming must be provided for.’
When Duncan arrives Lady Macbeth is extremely welcoming to him:
‘All our, service, in every point twice done and then done
Double.’
She is offering him her service and welcoming him in a dark and sinister way;
‘And the late dignities heaped up to them,
We rest your hermits.’
She says she will pray constantly for Duncan, it has double meaning though as she means she will pray for him after his death. This shows Lady Macbeth’s cruel and devious nature.
In Act 1 Scene 7 we see Lady Macbeth persuading her husband to kill Duncan. Macbeth tells her he does not want to kill Duncan but she acts persuasively;
‘…And live a coward in thine own esteem
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat I’th’adage?’
She makes Macbeth feel weak and cowardly with her language. She questions his masculinity:
‘When you durst do it, then you were a man.
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more than a man.’
She knows Macbeth will react if she questions how much of a man he is, to a man of Macbeth’s stature, a General in the army, it is important for him to be strong brave and masculine.
This shows how Lady Macbeth will always try her upmost to get her own way. She then uses shocking imagery;
‘…Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out had I so sworn
As you have done to this.’
She uses the horrible image of her killing a child to represent how she keeps promises, and how much they mean to her. She seems to have a hatred of children.
Lady Macbeth takes no physical part in the murder of Duncan, aside from the disposal of the daggers. She has reasons for not murdering Duncan herself:
‘…Had he not resembled My father as he slept
I had done’t.’
In my opinion this is purely an excuse, in truth she is scared of murdering Duncan,
Lady Macbeth becomes anxious for her husbands return while he is killing Duncan.
After the murder Macbeth is deeply troubled, we see Lady Macbeth being mildly supportive of him; ‘Consider it not so deeply.’
She seems to dismiss the things he says.
Lady Macbeth seems shocked when she looks at her blood soaked hands after returning the daggers;
‘My hands are of your colour, but I shame
To wear a heart so white.’
She is trying to remain strong and calm, maybe for Macbeth’s sake. After telling Macbeth to go to bed she says:
‘A little water clears us of this deed.
How easy it is then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended.’
This closely relates to Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking later in the play. She repeats some of these words. They are not her true feeling, she just puts it on to make Macbeth feel more at ease, she tries to make very little of the murder saying that a little water will wash it all away.
Lady Macbeth’s fainting in Act 2 Scene 3 is a distraction by her to draw attention away from Macbeth. This shows how clever and quick thinking she is.
In Act 3 Scene 2 Macbeth is deeply troubled. Lady Macbeth is supportive of him, she tells him not to dwell on the past; ‘should be without regard; what’s dine is done!’ She is trying to get him to forget the murder pf Duncan. She is even affectionate to him:
‘Come on my gentle Lord
Sleek o’er your rugged looks, be bright and jovial
Among your guests tonight.’
She wants him to act normally at the feast because she does not want people to become suspicious.
At the feast Lady Macbeth has to act quickly to account for Macbeth’s strange behaviour:
‘Sit, worthy friends. My Lord is often thus
And hath been from his youth.’
She turns to Macbeth and says ‘Are you a man?’ She has used this to get her way with him before, it is one thing she knows that he will react to. This time it doesn’t have the desired effect. To Macbeth’s reply she says:
‘O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear…’
She is saying his fear is false and that he is weak, Macbeth begins to compose but this does not last long, Lady Macbeth then sends the guests away.
In this scene she starts to calm things by telling the guests Macbeth often behaves this way, she becomes more anxious and starts to act coldly towards her husband. Under pressure Lady Macbeth is not the loving wife we have seen her to be in other scenes.
Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking in Act 5 Scene 1 is an example of an un-natural event, sleep being the most natural of things or so thought in Elizabethan England. All of Lady Macbeth’s feelings that she has kept secret are now made known. She says ‘What, will these hands ne’er be clean?’ This shows evidence that Lady Macbeth has been feeling the same as Macbeth, but she hasn’t expressed thus. She can’t get the thought of blood out of her head. She uses fragmented language echoing her own and Macbeth’s words; ‘Wash your hands, put on your night gown…’
We learn of Lady Macbeth’s death in Act 5 Scene 5, Malcolm says: ‘…his fiend like queen, who, as ‘tis thought of by self and violent hands took off her life.’
The fact that Lady Macbeth may have taken her own life suggests that her conscience caught up with her and she could no longer cope. Malcolm’s description of her could be true to how we have seen her behave earlier in the play, but not true to the remorseful Lady Macbeth we see later on in the play.
Lady Macbeth changes dramatically throughout the course of the play. She starts off very eager to kill Duncan, she is very ambitious. She is also seen to be very evil, almost like a witch. Her imagery is shocking, her nature; disturbing. Lady Macbeth shows little emotion and focuses on trying to help Macbeth. The banquet scene is where she starts to change. She loses affection for Macbeth as his behaviour becomes too much for her. The one thing she knows she can manipulate Macbeth with is questioning his masculinity; even this fails. Her sleepwalking shows a change in her, it is unnatural. Her true feelings are shown and a character thought of as evil is now seen as more normal, her feelings show she is remorseful. Suicide is her only way out.
The character thought of as evil and witch-like at the beginning of the play, leaves the play and ends her life a woman destroyed by her ambition for herself and her husband, with feeling like everyone else.
Rob Evans 10AX