Lady+Macbeth

Lady Macbeth, wife to Macbeth wears the pants in the relationship. She's is a tough, ruthless, ambitious woman who forces her husband into assassinating King Duncan so they can be the next rulers of Scotland. She feels that she's brought down by her female gender.

Lady Macbeth receives a letter from her husband, explaining his appointment to Thane of Cawdor, the witches' prophesy, and the possibility of himself becoming king. She knows that Macbeth wants to be king, but fears he is too weak to take it into his own hands. She, however, has the confidence to murder Duncan, the current king of Scotland, and comes up with a plan to do so. First she must persuade Macbeth to follow through with the murder, as he questions it, stating that Duncan is a great king. Nonetheless, Lady Macbeth is able to persuade Macbeth by attacking his masculinity and strength and eventually, Macbeth agrees to her plan.

They plan to murder Duncan while he is asleep at, Inverness, Macbeth's castle. The king is at the Macbeth residence due to the party for Macbeth becoming Thane of Cawdor. Lady Macbeth plans to get the guards drunk and drug them. While they're asleep, Macbeth will kill the unsuspecting Duncan. Also, they decide to frame the guards for the crime. After the murder is compete Lady Macbeth thinks it was easy and feels confident that they've gotten away with it, while Macbeth is overwhelmed with guilt. After Macbeth comes back from murdering Duncan, Lady Macbeth tells him to go back in the room and put the daggers on the guards and smear blood on them so it looks like they killed Duncan. Macbeth feels so guilty that he cannot go back into the room and so Lady Macbeth goes and does it herself. This proves that she really is the "man" in the relationship and she feels no shame in the act of murdering Duncan.

When it comes time to investigate the murder, Lady Macbeth plays the part of innocent housewife very well, pretending to have awaken from sounds of horror. She feigns to yawn, asking what happened.

By Act 3, Macbeth decides he wants to murder Banquo along with his son Fleance. The witches predicted that Banquo's son would become king and he feels threatened. Lady Macbeth does not agree with it, for he is already king and has nothing to worry about. But Macbeth thinks differently and goes on with the murder. The roles have swapped, for Lady Macbeth isn't obsessed with murdering all who are a threat to her thrown. Macbeth has gone mad, something that has not taken a toll on her.

By Act 5, however, Lady Macbeth begins to walk and talk in her sleep, something that seems to be very serious in the eyes of the Doctor. It seems that Lady Macbeth is speaking of the murder of King Duncan, but, of course, the Doctor is not aware of this. The main reason Lady Macbeth is sleeping walking and talking may be because of the guilt she has been feeling but not showing. She continuously washes her hands while she is sleep walking, making sure she gets every single "spot" off. Lady Macbeth was washing off the blood on her hands from the murder of King Duncan. After Macbeth murdered him, she went in to clean up and place the bloody daggers by the guards. She returned with bloody hands, which she felt proud of at the time. Washing her hands while sleepwalking, she desperately attempts to scrub away the contrition and regret she feels for her actions. However, no matter how much she cleans her hands, she believes there is one spot that just won't come off. This represents the fact that even Lady Macbeth can't rid herself of the horrible guilt that plagues her. It has finally hit her, and she is beginning to feel the deep regret and guilt that her husband, Macbeth, felt in the beginning. It seems that Lady Macbeth is slowly but surely falling apart. Her curious behaviour leads to her suicide, revealed by Malcolm to Macbeth before he goes into battle. Unlike most other characters in Shakespeare's plays, Lady Macbeth does not say anything before she dies.


 * Key Quotes:**

"Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark to cry 'Hold, hold!'"

"Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' th' milk of human kindness..."

"Look like th' innocent flower, but be the serpent under 't"

"Naught's had, all's spent, Where our desire is got without content."

"Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty."
 * //(see Important Quotations Explained)// **

"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 as you have done to this."

"A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight." "Out, damned spot, out I say!" "Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? "What's done cannot be undone." "To alter favor ever is to fear." "What, will these hands never be clean? No more of that, my lord, no more of that." "Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen/(Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands,/Took off her life)"

As I stated in my opinion of the book, I really liked Lady Macbeth. I was constantly being intrigued and interested by her. She is a very complex character. Throughout most of the book, readers are led to believe that Lady Macbeth is heartless, cold, and is completely unconcerned with the fact that she's a murderer, and is leading her husband to insanity. However, it is later found out that she, like a normal human being, has a guilty conscience. Her way of showing it is by sleepwalking, and confessing things either through writing or to servants whilst asleep. For me, it was rather surprising to find that Lady Macbeth even started to feel slightly bad. She did all of these horrible things, and treated her husband badly, and for a long while, she held herself together. Unfortunately, it caught up with her. She, like most other people, found that she could only go so long without confronting what she did. She put it off continuously for a long time, and it all built up. Eventually, she cracked, and her way of doing that was sleepwalking. Much like Macbeth, although in a different way, Lady Macbeth started to let her mind control her. She gave into the bad feelings, and essentially lost control. That's really why I enjoyed Lady Macbeth. She's so strong and dominant for most of the play, and eventually, you see how she's like anyone else. She has a conscience, and that's her downfall. -Kelsey
 * Opinions/Thoughts on the Character**

In my opinion, Lady Macbeth was the most influential character that disrupted the entire plot. She encouraged Macbeth to commit crimes that he did not need to commit. In fact, because Lady Macbeth did not show her emotions when she was around others, it had caused her husband to murder helpless people and become power hungry. If she did not have such a negative impact on Macbeth, he would have eventually become King and everything would have worked out for the better. Instead, Macbeth listened to his wife and he put himself in a detrimental situation which led to both his and Lady Macbeth's death.