Lady Macbeth Flashcards
Intro:
Lady Macbeth is a character who can be seen as subverting the feminine stereotypes of the Jacobean era. She pushes her husband’s ambition to gain power for herself and is equal in their relationship. However, after the murder of King Duncan, her power lessens and most is left to her husband. By the end of the play, her appearances grow less so much so that her death is not even seen to not get in the way of the action.
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Shakespear uses the character of Lady Macbeth to defy gender stereotypes and push Macbeth’s ambitions. She says “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” and “when you durst do it, then you were a man” when persuading Macbeth to kill King Duncan. Lady Macbeth is implying that to be female is to be kind and passive when she says she wants to be ‘unsex[ed]’ it means that she cannot be female to murder since murder is a cruel and violent activity. Lady Macbeth can also be seen as evil through her inviting spirits which shows her courageous character as that would mean she was practising witchcraft which could get her killed. Her asking to ‘fill[ed] [her] from the crown to the toe top full of direst cruelty’ suggests that she does not have that cruelty to kill someone’. This matches up with the later events of her mental deterioration due to her guilty conscience. Lady Macbeth also emasculates Macbeth to commit regicide by calling him saying that he is not a man. This would be calling him a coward since men were supposed to be strong and courageous and his character was mainly centred around that. Lady Macbeth is hurting his pride to make him commit regicide which leads to his downfall so this suggests that his pride and ambition is Macbeth’s tragic flaw. This is quite unusual for the female in the relationship to have as much power as the male in Elizabethan England. However, Lady Macbeth has equal or even more power than Macbeth in this scene as she is insulting him. This makes Lady Macbeth seem unnatural which would also make her seem evil like the witches. This shows Lady Macbeth as being powerful and dominant, persuading her unsure husband to commit regicide. Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth to motivate Macbeth into committing regicide.
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Lady Macbeth’s control over the situation lessens as her husband takes control after the murder of King Duncan. Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth to “Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck”. Lady Macbeth has much less stage time after the murder of Duncan as her husband takes over with more muders. Macbeth uses a condescending tone with her as he is treating her as a child as he uses the word ‘innocent’. He also calls her ‘dearest chuck’ which at first glance seems like a term of endearment but is actually more condescending and shows the power change from Lady Macbeth to Macbeth. At the start of the play, Lady Macbeth greets King Duncan in their castle and not Macbeth which shows her power then but in Act 3 Scene 4, Macbeth holds his own banquet which shows that Macbeth is now in power. This shows that Lady Macbeth has lost her place in the exclusively male world of treason and revenge. This could suggest that Lady Macbeth was Macbeth’s helpmate and once he had gotten his goal, being king, her work was done. Her sole role was to push him to embrace his ambitions to not regret in the future. Shakespeare initially presents Lady Macbeth as powerful but eventually lessens her role and allows Macbeth to take over as the main character to not distract from the action.
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Lady Macbeth eventually succumbs to madness as she sleepwalks and eventually commits suicide. She says “Out, damned spot!” and “The Thane of Fife had a wife” when sleeping walking. The madness of Lady Macbeth is shown through a dream of having a spot of blood on her hand. This reiterates the idea of hands and their actions which makes it seem like the hands are a sole entity and are not controlled by the body. This brings in the idea of fate and that it was fate moving their hands to commit evil . The use of the word “damned” is ironic because it is Lady Macbeth who is going to be “damned” and not the spot. The word ‘damned’ means that they were going to hell due to their crime because of the very religious environment of the time. The frustration over the spot shows her paranoia of getting caught with her crime. The sleepwalking could also be seen as divine punishment and not just caused by her guilty conscience as she helped murder King Duncan and framed his guards. The mention of the “spot” makes it seem like her participation in the murder of the king has stained her consciousness which suggests permanence. The deterioration of her mind can also be seen through the rhyme of “Fife’’ and “wife” which shows her mental state deteriorating to that of a child because of the rhyme which sounds like a nursery rhyme. This can also be seen through the change from iambic pentameter to prose which is reserved for characters with lesser status. At the end of the play, Lady Macbeth commits suicide due to her guilty conscience. In the Jacobean era, suicide is a sin and if a person was to commit suicide then they would rot in hell for an eternity and not even get a funeral which would not provide the person or their family members closure. Lady Macbeth’s guilt causes her mental deterioration and eventually her death.
Conclusion:
Lady Macbeth was a strong and powerful character in the beginning of the play, who broke societal norms and challenged her husband, to a lesser character whose death is not even shown. She is a key motivator to the regicide and was remembered as a ‘fiend-like queen’.
