Lady Macbeth

By dain, Student

Discuss the changes in Lady Macbeth’s character and explore why she continues to fascinate audiences.

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

Shakespeare wrote ‘Macbeth’ in early 1606 when plots against King James vi were rife. In this play Shakespeare shows what the King feared most (being murdered), but when the murderers suffer torment and are finally destroyed at the end of the play the King would have been pleased. It is easy to think that ‘Macbeth’ was just written to please the King, It also raises many questions about ambition, guilt, conciense and the true nature of evil.
When we first meet Lady Macbeth in Act one Scene five she is in Inverness reading a letter from Macbeth. During the reading of this letter she finds out that three witches have told Macbeth that he shall be the Thane of Cawdor but most importantly that he will be king, Macbeth also writes that one of these prophecies has already been fulfilled, he has become the Thane of Cawdor. Upon hearing this news Lady Macbeth immediately begins to scheme and plot, she is determined that Macbeth will become king as we can see when she says ‘Glamis thou art and Cawdor; and shalt be what thou art promised’ she wants Macbeth to be King so that she may become queen, but Lady Macbeth has her doubts, she worries that Macbeth is too kind and without the evil that he needs to join with his ambition, he will not be able to find the quickest route to the throne. To get past this problem Lady Macbeth decides to pour the spirits of her own evilness into Macbeth’s ears and drive away the fear that will hold him back from getting the crown. Here we are starting to get an insight into her character and we see that not only has she knowledge of her husbands personality, she is a loving wife too but is also prepared to persuade her husband to go against his better nature and become ruthlessly evil, she also appears to be a woman without any morals. She is thoroughly determined that the Witch’s prophecies will come true.
When a messenger comes to Lady Macbeth bearing the news that the King, Duncan, will be coming to stay at the castle her ambition takes a sudden turn and her wickedness grows. She decides that Duncan shall not leave her castle alive, ‘The Raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements’. As time goes on we see Lady Macbeth begin to invite evil into her body and take over mind by the uses of magic. She wants to have nothing stand in the way of her dark and evil deeds, she wants no remnants of her conscience left to stop her as she prepares to murder the king. She decides that the murder will take place in the night as she thinks that evil flourishes best in the darkness hidden from the gaze of heaven by the smoke of hell. Lady Macbeth wants to get rid of her female tenderness and replace it with pure evil.
As Macbeth enters we see Lady Macbeth great him with respect, love and honor. As she tells Macbeth of her plans she makes it clear that she believes that she and her husband can control time and make the future do what they want. Lady Macbeth reveals that she is worried that Macbeth will give the plot away with his face so she tells him to ‘look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t’. Here Shakespeare has used historical context in Lady Macbeth’s speech, as a medal was made to commemorate the Gunpowder plot of 1605, it shows a serpent concealed underneath flowers. Lady Macbeth talks about hiding their intentions, she has assumed the role of leadership in their relationship which shows that she is in great control at the beginning of the play.
When Duncan arrives at the castle Lady Macbeth leads him inside and so to his death. During Act one Scene seven we see Lady Macbeth consistently having to reinforce Macbeth’s determination to carry out the murder as he wanders around the castle in doubt. As Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth why it would not be a good idea to carry out the murder and that he will not do it she turns on him and starts to insult him telling him that he is a coward ‘And live a coward in thine own esteem’ this insult is not strictly true as he is a brave solider, but Lady Macbeth uses it in the hope that he will defend himself by saying that he is not a coward and thus carrying out the murder. Lady Macbeth tells him that he is ‘Like the poor cat i’ the adage’ he wants the crown as the cat in the proverb wants to have the fish but he will not do what it takes to get it like the Cat will not wet her feet to capture the Fish. Macbeth still refuses and Lady Macbeth then goes to the extremes and uses imagery saying that she would rather dash out the brains of a baby than let a chance like this pass them by, her character appears to be getting more fiendish and wicked by the minute. Lady Macbeth eventually manages to get Macbeth to pervert his feelings of right and wrong and then proceeds to tell him the plan that she has most evilly devised: she will make the guards drunk then murder Duncan and the guards shall get the blame. Lady Macbeth severely lacks the imagination to see where the plan has many flaws in it and could quite easily go wrong, but she is so confident that courage is all that is needed to carry out the murder and so blinded by the thought of power she cannot see into the future and figure out what consequences the murder may have.
Now in Act two scene two we almost immediately see the flaws in Lady Macbeth’s iron will and strength as we learn that she has had to drink to keep up her spirits ‘That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold’. We learn that for all her malice she could not murder Duncan as he reminded her of her father, which raises the question for the audience has she managed to completely get rid of her conscience or is there still remnants of it in her? And is she completely and utterly evil or just fooling herself into thinking that she is?. Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth that he has completed the murder and as he finishes telling her he realizes the significance of what he has done. Macbeth has bought the daggers back with him from the murder scene and Lady Macbeth insulting him takes the daggers from him to return them to the bedroom. Lady Macbeth seems to have recovered from her earlier fears and is back to her ‘normal’ self. Macbeth is worrying about the blood on their hands and to this Lady Macbeth replies (in a very matter of fact way) ‘A little water clears us of this deed’ she does not seem the slightest bit worried about it and thinks that all they need to do to hide their criminal deed is to wash the blood off of their hands. There is a knocking at the gate and Lady Macbeth suggests that they retire to there chamber to put on their nightgowns and appear none the wiser when the murder is discovered.
When Macduff awakes the castle to tell them of the hideous deed that has been committed Macbeth threatens to give the game away in his speeches to Macduff so much so that Lady Macbeth faints to draw attention away from Macbeth to herself, and therefore ensuring that he does not talk too much. Already Lady Macbeth is having to cover up for her husbands actions.
When we next see Lady Macbeth in Act three scene two an important change has happened in the relationship between lady Macbeth and her husband. Lady Macbeth is no longer the leader in their relationship and Macbeth is planning and scheming by himself without consulting his wife. Macbeth does not tell Lady Macbeth that he is planning to murder Banquo but tells her to ‘be innocent of the knowledge’. We have a complete role reversal Macbeth has become the decision maker and Lady Macbeth just accepts things. We also find out that Lady Macbeth is not at all happy with her new found Leadership and the first seeds of her madness are being sown.
In Act three scene four it is the last time that we see Lady Macbeth and Macbeth together. In this scene Lady Macbeth and her husband have put on a banquet to which lots of important guests have been invited. Lady Macbeth is very quiet at first and Macbeth bids her to welcome the guests ( this also shows role reversal as Macbeth is now telling Lady Macbeth what to do). Macbeth has a quite and whispered conversation with a Murderer who Has just slain Banquo at Macbeth’s command, this threatens to spoil the feast as Lady Macbeth points out to Macbeth, she then says ‘’Tis given with welcome: to feed were best at home; from thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony; meeting were bare without it’. Here Shakespeare has used a layer of meaning as Lady Macbeth makes a pun on ‘meat’ and ‘meet’. The appearance of the ghost of Banquo just after this threatens to spoil the banquet completely, only Macbeth can see this apparition and Lady Macbeth not knowing what Macbeth is seeing (as she cannot see the ghost herself as she had no part in the murder) has to cover up for Macbeth which puts exceptional emotional strength on her and begins to crack her up. To get Macbeth out of this strange state of mind Lady Macbeth insults his manhood again as she did earlier in the play but it does not work Macbeth can still see the ghost of Banquo and she tells him that it is rubbish and that it is just the same as the ‘air - drawn dagger which, you said, led you to Duncan’. The ghost then disappears, but just as everything is returning to normal the ghost comes back, again Lady Macbeth has to cover up for her husband which puts even more stress onto the load that she is already carrying. Lady Macbeth then loses all control of the situation and tells all the guests to go, not bother with all the formalities and just go. As soon as the guests have left Lady Macbeth breaks down completely and turns into a broken and exhausted Women.
I think that the fact that Lady Macbeth cannot see the ghost of Banquo makes this scene more dramatically effective as she has to cope with Macbeth’s strange behavior not knowing what exactly he is seeing.
Lady Macbeth does not appear at all in Act four, which makes her appearance in Act 5 as a mad and broken women all the more convincing, the reality of conscience and of human feeling have reduced her to this pitiful state. In Act five we see that Lady Macbeth has changed greatly from the start of the play. At the beginning of the play she did not care about the blood on her hands and now she is sleepwalking and worrying about it ‘what will these hands ne,er be clear?’. She is starting to go mad and her conscience is coming back along with all the feelings that she suppressed (like guilt), they return to haunt her and drive her insane. She cannot stop thinking about the blood making yet comments on it ‘Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand’. Lady Macbeth is in her own private hell which is a large contrast with her firmness of purpose and certainty of mind at the time of Duncan’s murder.
At the beginning of Act Five Scene One we see a Doctor discussing Lady Macbeth’s mental state with a lady servant. The servant tells the Doctor that Lady Macbeth cannot bear to be without light, This is a contrast as at the beginning of the play she wanted to be surrounded by darkness. They see Lady Macbeth sleepwalking and washing her hands and madly talking to herself she talks in the halting speech of the mad (for which Shakespeare uses prose and not verse) going over and over the guilty details of her past. At one point she questions what will happen to her now ‘the Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?’, she is saying that Macduff had a wife that was killed and asks if that is what is going to happen to her?. Evil has pervaded all of Lady Macbeth senses and she desperately wants something feminine back. Lady Macbeth starts to repent and prays for forgiveness so that she may go to heaven. The Doctor realizes that things are not as they seem and that Lady Macbeth’s illness is not physical but mental. Lady Macbeth’s speeches in this scene are not true soliloquies as other characters are listening, but they serve the same purpose of giving the audience an insight into the characters subconscious mind. Towards the end of this scene Shakespeare manages to make us pity Lady Macbeth which is a great achievement.
Almost at the close of the play we hear, as if it were of no great importance at all that Lady Macbeth is dead (probably suicide). Lady Macbeth’s suffering drives her to despair which leads to her death. Lady Macbeth’s character follows the pattern of decline, despair and death.
Lady Macbeth’s end is quite pathetic but her story relates to the evil of the entire play. Lady Macbeth believed that she could make herself as evil as she wished to be. She did not accept that evil is self destructive and she did not question that if anyone did make themselves this evil, could they stay evil without some disastrous consequences?. This she has to learn and find out herself and this is what we are shown. Her inability to murder Duncan give us some idea that she could have a scrap of human kindness left in her. As Lady Macbeth learns the true reality of evil we see that the strain of keeping up appearances has become intolerable and she has to support her husband, cover up for him and think about her own insecurities. All this strain proves to much for Lady Macbeth to cope with and it finally breaks her, and even in her madness she is tortured. For Lady Macbeth there is no escape from the guilt except maybe in death so she commits suicide. What makes her character so fascinating is the changes that she goes through and the fact that Shakespeare manages to make us pity her as evil as she is.
Elizabethan would have been shocked at Lady Macbeth’s character so openly inviting evil as in those times witches were still persecuted. They would have also been fascinated by her as women would not have had the control over their husbands that Lady Macbeth did at the start of play. Modern audiences would not be so shocked at Lady Macbeth’s behavior as the Elizabethans would have been. It is a constant theme in Shakespeare’s plays that woman will eventually lead man to destruction.
When I first encountered Lady Macbeth I actually felt a certain amount of annoyance towards her, and I wondered how anyone could be so stupid as to want to make themselves more evil than they already were. I felt puzzled by the fact that she wanted to get rid of her humanity, I thought why would anyone want to do that? And then I realized that she knew that she could not carry out the murder if she did not get rid of her conscience as she knew that she was not really that evil. When Lady Macbeth said that she could not murder Duncan as he reminded her of her own father, I began to feel less annoyed by her as I knew that she still had some remnants of humanity left in her so I felt that she could not be all that evil. During the Banquet scene I began to feel rather sorry for her as she and Macbeth were no longer communicating with each other and Lady Macbeth was under a lot of pressure from having to cover up her husbands behavior. When I saw her sleepwalking in Act five I was actually quite amused by her behavior as I felt that she was getting what she finally deserved for summoning up evil spirits. When I heard that she had committed suicide I felt pity for her as even murders do not deserve to be tortured by their conscience so much that they feel the only way out is death. I think that Shakespeare has created an excellent character in Lady Macbeth as very few theatrical characters make us hate them then change our feelings completely so that we feel sorry and pity for them in the end.