Lady Macbeth Essay Example for Free

Lady Macbeth Essay Lady Macbeth is a fascinating character in the play of Macbeth. When we first meet her in Act One, she seems to be a very strong character however, later on, we realise that she isnt so strong and cant live with her guilt of killing Duncan. She goes insane and later dies as a weak, vulnerable figure. She is reading a letter from her husband about his meetings with the witches. We get a very strong indication as to the nature of her character at this stage through her soliloquies the first being her reaction to the witches prophecies and the second being her response to the messengers news of the king comes here tonight. Lady Macbeth is determined that Macbeth should be king but knows that hes too full of the milk of human kindness/To catch the nearest way. She is aware of her husbands weaknesses and indeed strengths, and is ruthless enough to exploit them. She is a woman ambitious for her husband whom she loves. She recognises the essential good in him, and feels that, without her, he will never win the Crown. For him, she invites the evil spirits to unsex her and remove her femininity to make her evil enough to carry out the deed of murdering Duncan. The fact that she had to call upon the evil spirits emphasizes that she knows shed never do it without the help of the spirits because her feminine qualities would take over. To Macbeth, in his letter to her, she is his dearest partner of greatness, an indication of love and trust. We see her as she analyses his virtues and weaknesses and decides to overcome his scruples, hie thee hither/That I may pour my spirits at thine ear. She is very faithful to Macbeth and at this point, thinks she knows theyre not going to fail. Macbeth starts to falter and says we will proceed no further in this business. She is angry at this and uses the horrific imagery of dashing a baby from her breast and slamming it down onto the stone ground to kill it, if she had promised Macbeth she would do a task such as killing Duncan. Lady Macbeth berates her husband for his lack of conviction, she questions his love for her; she mocks him, saying that he is less than a man, accusing him of being drunk and a coward. Her loyalty to him is unfaltering as he procrastinates. When Macbeth asks her about failing, she replies We, fail?/But screw your courage to the sticking place and we will not fail. She has planned Duncans murder right down to the last detail she has planned to drug Duncans guards and has left the daggers ready for Macbeth. She also seems to be the more devious of the two and, perhaps, the better criminal when Macbeth brings the daggers down with him, she quickly notices and puts them back. Here, we do see a sign of conscience creeping through when she mentions how she couldnt have killed Duncan because he resembled her father. Throughout the scene of the murder (Act II, scene ii), she is under the influence of drink, proving that she is not filled from top to bottom with the direst cruelty. After Duncans body has been discovered, Macbeth nearly blows their cover when he starts talking about how he killed the guards. Lady Macbeth cleverly faints here to divert the attention away from her husband. In Act III, Lady Macbeth realises that the crown doesnt bring happiness Noughts had, alls spent/Where our desire is not got without content. Here, I think she realises how she has become distanced from Macbeth after he got the crown. Further in Act III, is the banquet scene. Macbeth has had Banquo killed at this point but did not tell his wife about the plot. When Macbeth enters the banquet hall, he sees Banquos ghost in his chair. Lady Macbeth again fears that Macbeth is going to give away their whole scene when he starts talking to the ghost. Her first strategy is to appeal to his manliness again, Are you a man? When she sees that this isnt working, she makes excuses for him by saying that he has been mentally ill since his youth. She quickly ushers out the guests, to stop Macbeth from saying something the pair would later regret. This is the last point we see Lady Macbeth until the last Act. In Act V, we meet a very different Lady Macbeth. She has now been reduced to a poor, mad creature, very badly shaken by events. She is observed sleepwalking and retracing the events of the murders of Duncan, Banquo and of Macduffs family. Se unfolds a piece of paper, reads it, refolds it and replaces it in the closet. We are not told what this is (some scholars have suggested it to be a suicide note; others have suggested a confession of the murders. It doesnt make much difference what it is, however, it is sometimes nice to speculate). She washes her hands again and again, saying out damned spot, out! Her gentlewoman reports that what Lady Macbeth has said has been incriminating. She has been reduced to such an insecure wreck that she cant even go to sleep without a light on. She reminisces about the knocking heard on the night of the murder To bed, to bed: theres knocking at the gate. Subconsciously she is going over the events in her head even those she wasnt directly involved with but knew about- The thane of Fife had a wife. When she returns to bed, we dont ever see her again and we hear not of her again until Seyton says to Macbeth The queen, my lord, is dead. Macbeth doesnt seem upset by this and basically says it was an inconvenient time for her to die. Throughout the play, we see a great change in Lady Macbeths person she changes from a strong, ambitious mind at the start to a weak mentally disturbed soul at the end. A great contrast can also be seen between Macduffs O gentle lady to Malcolms fiend-like queen. Maybe we should feel sorry for Lady Macbeth or maybe we should feel that she got her just-desserts. Either way, she was one of the most complex, enigmatic characters introduced by Shakespeare, representing the fundamental drive for human ambition.