Macbeth: themes and character analysis

Macbeth

Lady Macbeth

Reading the play the Tragedy of Macbeth, even a modern-day audience is struck by the manipulative efforts of Lady Macbeth, whose scheming appears to drive her husband to commit horrible acts, including murder. First, Lady Macbeth is aware of her husband's nature and is concerned that he is not sufficiently hardened to seize power. Next, Lady Macbeth clearly pushes her husband into committing the murder. However, Lady Macbeth's apparent guilt by the end of the play makes some people question how much responsibility Lady Macbeth has for her husband's actions, because she shows more remorse than he does. Rather than suggesting that she is not responsible for her husband's actions, Lady Macbeth's guilty conscience actually helps demonstrate that she was as responsible for Duncan's murder as her husband. All three of these factors combine to make it clear that Lady Macbeth is responsible for the murder of Duncan, even though her husband committed the actual crime.

When Lady Macbeth is first introduced, she immediately makes her feelings about her husband and his ambitions clear. Speaking of her husband, she says:

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promis'd. Yet do I fear they nature,

It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,

Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it. What thou wouldst

Highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,

And yet wouldst wrongly win. (I.v, 15-22).

She knows that her husband has both the ambition and the skill to become a great leader. However, she feels that Macbeth is too soft-hearted and honest to be able to take his position. This is at a point in the play where Lady Macbeth is speaking to herself. She is not comporting her behavior to fit anyone else's expectations. Even then, she demonstrates a level of cunning and manipulative skill, which makes it clear that she disapproves of the gentler aspects of her husband's nature. Then, when she hears that Macbeth is about to arrive, she pleads with the spirits to transform her into the type of person who can be without remorse, to help her husband gain a position of power. She pleads:

Come you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe topful

Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,

Stop up th' access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th' effect and [it]! (I.v, 40-47).

Lady Macbeth is aware that the actions she plans to undertake are ones that would normally cause a person to experience remorse, but she asks for the spirits to intervene and keep her from that feeling. This demonstrates that she has the intent to cause Duncan's death, though the reader does not yet know of her chosen means. Contrasted with her earlier statements about her husband's too-kind nature, it is clear that Lady Macbeth is the person who first manifests evil intent towards Duncan.

Of course, if Lady Macbeth had kept her plotting secret, never involving her husband in her plans, then Duncan would not have died. Lady Macbeth did not have the resources to commit the murder herself. It is unclear whether this is due to her lack of physical strength, or to the fact that she knew she would feel remorseful about the act, and maybe felt that indirect involvement would insulate her from her feelings of guilt. Whatever her motivation, it is clear that Lady Macbeth does not feel that she can kill Duncan on her own. Therefore, she begins to coach her husband, persuading him that he must kill Duncan in order to take his place as the king. As soon as Macbeth returns home and tells Lady Macbeth that Duncan is coming, she begins plotting Duncan's death. Macbeth tells his wife that Duncan is coming to spend a night, and then leaving in the morning. Lady Macbeth responds:

O, never

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my than, is as a book, where men

May read strange matters. To beguile the time,

Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue; look like th' innocent flower,

But be the serpent under't. He that's coming

Must be provided for; and you shall put

This night's great business into my dispatch,

Which shall to all our nights and days to come

Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom. (I.v, 60-70).

Macbeth shows no ill intent towards his king when he informs his wife that Duncan will be an overnight guest, but Lady Macbeth immediately responds by instructing him to act as a serpent towards the king. She does not appear to have to goad him tremendously, because Macbeth is immediately discussing the idea of assassination. However, when his wife enters, he has made up his mind that they will not kill Duncan. However, Lady Macbeth goads him, implying that if he does not kill Duncan, he does not love her. She asks:

What beast was't then That made you break this enterprise to me?

When you durst do it, then you were a man;

And to be more than what you were, you would

Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place,

Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:

They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know

How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me;

would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,

And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you

Have done to this. (I.vii, 48-59).

The imagery she chooses is incredibly vivid, as well as very manipulative. Nowhere has Macbeth promised her that he would kill Duncan; at the very most, he promised her that they would further discuss the matter. Moreover, she acts as if his refusal to kill the king is an act of personal disloyalty and says that she would kill her own innocent child, if she had promised her husband that she would do so. In the fact of that type of declaration of loyalty, Macbeth's refusal to kill Duncan could only be viewed as a betrayal.

Finally, Lady Macbeth's actions after the murder demonstrate her own sense of guilt and responsibility. While she is sleepwalking, she seems to be washing her hands. While doing so, she says: