Lady Macbeth Character Analysis

• Lady Macbeth

  The deuteragonist (second most significant character) in the drama, the wife of Macbeth who shares his lust for power
• Lady Macbeth

  • Our initial impressions are that she is "fiend-like" as her thoughts turn immediately to regicide when she learns of Duncan's visit
  • She summons evil "spirits" and commands them to "make thick my blood" so that "no compunctious visitings of Nature" shake her wicked intention to murder the King
  • She imagines committing the regicide herself, asking to be wrapped in the blackest smoke of Hell "so that my keen knife sees not the wound it makes"
  • She is not naturally "fiend-like" as she admits she could not do it because Duncan "looked like my father as he slept"
  • She avoids using the word "murder" and instead employs euphemisms when pressuring Macbeth to commit the deed, which subtly conveys her wily, artful manipulation of her husband
• After the regicide is committed and Lady Macbeth becomes Queen

  The dynamics of her relationship with Macbeth undergo a dramatic transformation, as her ability to influence him diminishes and she becomes an increasingly isolated figure
• Lady Macbeth privately admits "Nought's had, all's spent, where our desire is got without content" despite having fulfilled her ambition to become Queen
• As Lady Macbeth's ability to influence Macbeth diminishes

  She becomes an increasingly isolated figure
• After the banquet scene, Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth "You lack the season of all natures – sleep"
• The audience's final impressions of Lady Macbeth are in Act 5 scene 1 where she is sleepwalking, burdened by guilt
• The evil Lady Macbeth so willingly embraced betrays her - as it betrays Macbeth - and produces only anguish in place of the rewards she had envisioned
• Lady Macbeth seems unable to rid herself of the stench and spots of blood she imagines cover her hands, and the Doctor fears she is suicidal
• Deuteragonist


  second most significant character
• Lady Macbeth

  • Exemplifies darkness and the evil potency of the human greed and lust for power
  • One of the most disturbing characters in Shakespeare's works
• The play Macbeth depicts women or femininity in a very negative manner
• Witches

  • Three female malevolent beings
  • Ignite Macbeth's latent desire for power and status
• Macbeth hears the witches' prophecies

  He could have been content as Thane of Cawdor and waited for the prophecy of becoming king to happen naturally
• Macbeth decides to actively try and realise the prophecy

  By murderous and treacherous actions
• Lady Macbeth

  • Receives a letter from Macbeth about the witches' prophecies
  • Takes the prophecies very seriously
• Lady Macbeth: '"Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way:"'
• Lady Macbeth's view

  The world is not a nice place, to be successful one must be ruthless and engage in dirty acts
• Lady Macbeth: '"Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear And chastise with the valor of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round"'
• If there had been no witches, there would be no story as Macbeth would never have dreamed of being king
• If Lady Macbeth had not been present or had been a different person, Macbeth would not have decided to kill Duncan
• Serpent

  • In the biblical tale of the forbidden apple, the serpent is the devil
  • Lady Macbeth can be likened to the serpent who caused Adam's downfall
• Lady Macbeth: '"Look like th'innocent flower, But be the serpent under't"'
• Duplicity

  Seen as characteristically 'feminine' as women could not use physical power to further their agenda, so they resorted to guile and inciting those with physical power
• Lady Macbeth: '"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."'
• Lady Macbeth's request to the spirits

  To deprive her of her femininity and fill her with cruelty
• Lady Macbeth: '"Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers"'
• Lady Macbeth's request

  To change her nurturing breast milk into bile, removing her inherent female goodness and kindness
• Lady Macbeth: '"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."'
• Lady Macbeth: '"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."'
• Lady Macbeth's disturbing words

  She is willing to commit infanticide to encourage Macbeth to commit regicide, showing her complete lack of shame and remorse
• Macbeth: '"Bring forth men-children only, For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males."'
• Lady Macbeth exhibits hypocrisy when she says she would not be able to kill her father, despite claiming she could kill her own child
• If Lady Macbeth had never said these words and turned on Macbeth for not wanting to kill the king then the story of Macbeth as we see it in the play would never have happened and instead merely a fairly normal story of a brave warrior respected by the king for his loyalty and who was promoted would have taken place
• Lady Macbeth, who is arguably a bully as she tries to coerce Macbeth in to killing Duncan, like other bullies seems to exhibit a degree of hypocrisy when she says: Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done 't
• Lady Macbeth's statement

  She would be able to murder her own child but not her father. She would be able to carry out infanticide not patricide whilst she herself pushed Macbeth commit regicide
• Shakespeare deliberately inserted these words for us to compare the inconsistency - why is it that the same lady Macbeth who claims she is prepared to kill her child not be able to kill her father?
• Both infanticide and patricide are morally totally outrageous, but a young baby is more vulnerable and has its entire life ahead of it
• Lady Macbeth is inconsistent and despite essentially saying she would go the whole distance of killing someone it seems she is not ready to kill Duncan
• Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth to do something which she herself is not prepared to do, showing bullying and hypocrisy