lady macbeth 2

• keywords:

  • Hypocrisy, cowardice, liminal gender, emasculation, heinous
• Shakespeare exposes her hypocrisy and true cowardice.

  • "had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it" exposes her inner cowardice and ingrained fear of patricide.
• Lady Macbeth emasculates Macbeth by saying "I shame to wear a heart so white" to ridicule his cowardice.
• Manipulative as she operates within a liminal gender, she takes advantage of alleged feminine weaknesses when it works for her yet brutally rejects it if it represses her.
• "A little water clears us of this deed"

  • Litotes (under-exaggeration)
  • Euphemism, cannot fully recognise what they have committed
  • Laced with irony as Lady Macbeth shifts to a melodramatic state of insanity and begins speaking in hyperbole as the guilt takes over (Act 5).
• Euphemism of "deed"

  • Lady Macbeth fails to face up to the reality of it, she must placate it into less heinous words in order to keep her, albeit temporary, composure.
• Shakespeare may have been creating a subtle commentary on how arbitrary (illogical) gender roles were, as this was a typical theme in his work.