In scene 7, we see Lady Macbeth start to show her true colours. She shows how manipulative she actually is, as we witness her persuade Macbeth into killing King Duncan. She uses various techniques to make Macbeth see her way. She uses emotional blackmail (a typical feminine ruse) and her femininity by saying she will not love him any more; “From this time such I account thy love.” She knows that he loves her and uses this against him. She takes a great risk when she insults his masculinity. She attacks him by saying, “Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’ like the poor cat i’ the adage?” There she is calling him a “wimp” and a “scaredy cat”. She undermines him as a husband by comparing him to the cat that wants the fish but doesn’t want to get his paws wet. We see here how much she is driving Macbeth to be King, but we catch a glimpse of her own ambition to be queen.
We also see that she contains a violent streak. She compares his inability to commit the murder to her ability to dash her own baby’s brains her out. This is an example of her using painful memories to get her own way. Here we get a glimpse of a woman who is emotionally scarred, perhaps she had had a child but it had died. Lady Macbeth seems to have already decided that King Duncan will die whatever Macbeth says. She describes the plan to assassinate him in graphic detail. She convinces Macbeth that this will go ahead.
If Lady Macbeth hadn’t been in the picture, then undoubtedly Macbeth wouldn’t have murdered the King. Even with her support he still needs some hard persuading.
In Act 2 Scene 2, we behold Lady Macbeth covering up for Macbeth when he breaks down after the murder. He becomes instantly paranoid after the murder saying that the guards muttered in their sleep “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep!” This shows that he already is beginning to break. He is imagining things will eventually contribute to his downfall. Lady Macbeth dismisses this as ramblings of a man just having done a terrible deed and leads him to bed. She calms him by telling him to “go, get some water”, almost like he has just cut his hand or some other minor incident. We see that she has no concern for the fact that a murder has taken place when she goes to take the daggers back. She is more frustrated that Macbeth has evidence of the crime with him than the fact that the King is dead. “Why did you bring these daggers from the place?” is proof of her desperation that they not be discovered. She is willing to take the risk in taking the daggers back to the guards and covering them with the blood (to make the blame fall on them) rather than have them on her person if she is caught. The next morning Macbeth makes the mistake of killing the guards. Although he does it as if in a rage about the King’s death, afterwards when explaining his deeds to the King’s Men, he starts to babble. Lady Macbeth conveniently faints to distract the guards from Macbeth’s gibberish. Here we see that she is aware of her feminine charms and uses them to protect her husband. Throughout this scene we see Lady Macbeth’s importance in covering up the murder. Not only does she finish the deed; she also covers up her husbands increasingly numerous mistakes. I think Shakespeare is hinting that without his wife, Macbeth would be useless, that in actual fact Lady Macbeth is the stronger character in their relationship. At the beginning of the play, it is obvious that Lady Macbeth intends for Macbeth to do all he dirty business, for her not to get her hands soiled at all. But when Lady Macbeth comes back from taking the daggers to the guards’ chambers, we see a transformation from “innocent” to “guilty”. She says “my hands are of you colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white”, meaning even though she is now completely part of the murder, she doesn’t feel any guilt.
In the Act 3 Scene 4, Macbeth breaks down after “seeing” the ghost of Banquo at the banquet he has held to celebrate him becoming King. Lady Macbeth doesn’t actually know that Macbeth has had Banquo murdered and so is puzzled by his erratic behaviour. She covers up for him by saying “My Lord is often thus…The fit is momentary…He will be well again…” She says that he is just experiencing a fit and that from childhood, he has had fits such as these. So we see that even though she has no idea what is currently going on, she is intelligent enough to conceal his blunder. Unfortunately for their plan, she has to make the guests leave which may cause suspicion among their guests. She realises this but has to make sure Macbeth doesn’t make anymore errors. Again in this scene, she has proven that she is stronger willed, she hasn’t been affect as much as he has by the murder. We see he is steadily going downhill.
The Banquet scene is the last time we see Lady Macbeth as her strong and determined self. At the end of the play, the roles have been reversed and now Macbeth is calculating and unemotional whereas Lady Macbeth suffers a nervous breakdown and wracked by guilt she commits suicide. She sleepwalks relieving the dreadful night’s events and describes the murder. Nearby are a doctor and her handmaiden. They do not realise that she is talking about the murder but become increasingly suspicious when she starts to mutter about washing blood off her hands. She says, “will these hands ne’er be clean?” This contrasts with the night of the murder where she said that water would risen the blood off their hands, now she is saying that water won’t. This represents her guilt finally emerging. She didn’t think she was capable of it but deep in her subconscious, the guilt is increasing. Throughout the beginning of the play, the audience was led to believe that Lady Macbeth was unfeeling and callous, but this scene means that they have to reconsider their view of her as it appears that she is not as strong as she first appeared. When she commits suicide, the audience finally see that she wasn’t as resolute and strong-willed as first perceived.
Throughout Macbeth we slowly start to discover that Lady Macbeth is “wearing the trousers” in the relationship. She uses bribery, emotional blackmail, reverse psychology and flattery to persuade Macbeth to commit the murder of King Duncan. Even though Macbeth is presented as having a close relationship with his wife, there is no sense at the end of the play of Macbeth being the domineering partner. In fact we see that it is Lady Macbeth who possesses the masculine qualities. She acts rationally and calmly when covering up the crime and acts coolly under the pressure until the final moments of her life where she suffers a nervous breakdown.
Lady Macbeth is very important to the play because she proves to be the link between Macbeth and the King. Without her support, Macbeth probably wouldn’t have gone through with the murder. We see her strength when she covers up for Macbeth, when he sees Banquo’s ghost at the banquet. However by the end of the play, we realise that this is just a façade. That in actual fact, she isn’t as strong as she appears. In the end she kills herself when overcome with guilt I don’t think Lady Macbeth was an evil person as such, although Shakespeare gives her a domineering, malicious personality.
It is interesting because Macbeth was written in a time where the Church taught that women were a source of temptation and sin. In the Bible, Eve persuades Adam to eat tan apple from the Forbidden Tree. This results in Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden and being forced to live in a world of suffering. So if you compare the two texts, it appears that Lady Macbeth is a kind of “modern” Eve. Another point is that Shakespeare goes against the traditional Elizabethan views of male and female characteristics and presents Lady Macbeth and Macbeth as both possessing qualities of femininity and masculinity. At the beginning, Lady Macbeth is ruthless, cunning and unemotional whereas Macbeth is irrational and indecisive. Shakespeare presents a more realistic representation of men and women.
Another central aspect to the play is the fact that throughout it Shakespeare hints that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth had lost a child. Macbeth kills MacDuff’s family perhaps out of spite and MacDuff’s response is that he cannot get proper revenge, as Macbeth doesn’t have a family. Perhaps the lack of children explains why Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are so ruthless, value status so highly and put so much energy into achieving the status that they crave so much.
I think that Lady Macbeth probably resented being stuck in a castle all the time. By this I mean it would be hard not to have as much freedom as she would have done before she was married. Married women often felt constricted by their husbands and so she put all of her energy into herself and ambitions. This in itself wasn’t wrong but she did it in such a way that she ended up taking the wrong path and pursuing the wrong kind of ambitions. She allowed herself to follow the route that led to murder and self-destruction whilst also leading Macbeth too. It is often down to the actor to interpret their character’s actions and so Lady Macbeth is often portrayed in many different ways when performed. I believe Shakespeare intended Lady Macbeth to be a strong resolute woman eventually brought down by the pressure of experiencing ultimate power and then being eaten up by it.
