Character: Lady Macbeth

Question 1

How is Lady Macbeth presented in the play?

Answer 1

As a powerful and atypical woman in Jacobean Society who subverts the audience’s expectations of femininity

Question 2

LM is highly ambitious and determined for M to become King, after reading M’s letter what does she declare?

Answer 2

“Glamis thou art and Cawdor - and shalt be what thou art promised”

Question 3

LM is anxious that Macbeth does not have the ruthlessness needed to secure his place as King, what does she say?

Answer 3

Macbeth is “too full of the milk of human kindness”milk = purity, femininity. Emasculating him

Question 4

LM is deceitfully and manipulative, what does she say she will do Macbeth to cunningly persuade him to murder Duncan?

Answer 4

She will “pour [her] spirits” In Macbeth’s ear

Question 5

LM is dominant and takes control what does she tell M that tells us she is the driving force behind the regicide plot?

Answer 5

“Leave all the rest to me”
Leave = imperative

Question 6

What does LM say that shocks the Jacobean audience as she rejects the accepted motherly nature and shows she is violent and ruthless?

Answer 6

Graphic imagery:
She would have “dashed” her own baby’s “brains out” whilst it was “smiling” in her face