Lady Macbeth

• • there's a lot of evidence for Lady Macbeth being the fourth Witch
  • Lady Macbeth is instrumental in planting the idea of murder in his head
  • she speaks in rhyming couplets while persuading Macbeth to agree to her plan
  • her command of rhetorical question and manipulation imitates the witches spells and trickery
  • Equally her Plan rests on her ability to use facade to manipulate reality, meaning her relationship with appearance VS reality is similar to the witches
• • Her supervision of femininity was in Jacobean times more than enough evidence that she was a witch.
  • Shakespeare implies her unnatural power as a women is due to her supernatural links
  • lady M. could be called 'creator of evil' in Macbeth.
  • she is the main conspirator out of the Macbeths and plants the idea of evil in Macbeth's mind
• The methods LM uses to manipulate Macbeth hold explicit links to the supernatural. She wants to:

  "pour [her] spirits in[his] ear"-an allusion to demonic possession.

  • this quote also connotes the story of the GARDEN OF EDEN, where the serpent tempted Eve to sin, and eve then whispers in Adam's ear so that he might join her.
• "pour [her] spirits in [his] ear"

  • Lady Macbeth can be viewed as an imitation of Pandor from Roman mythology: Pandora opened the box that brought all evil and sin into the world. Shakespeare associates the fall of man with seduction, femininity, and the supernatural
• How does lady Macbeth link to supernatural?

  • Lady Macbeth calls on spirits too. She does this like the witches themselves: ‘Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here’ (1,5).
  • She uses imperative language (‘come’ and ‘unsex’) which suggests that she thinks she has control over them.
• "Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under't " Act1 Scene5

  • metaphor
  • Lady M urges Macbeth to maintian a facade of purity an harmlessness.
  • however, the imagery of a 'serpent' lurking underneath a flower symbolises hidden malice and treachery.
  • in the bible, a snake tempts Eve to eat the apple in the Garden Of Eden, suggesting that Lady Macbeth is manipulating Macbeth to follow his temptations to kill king Duncan due to his ambition, his harmartia
• "I may pour my spirits in thine ear" Act 1 Scene5


  • Lady Macbeth articulates her plan to influence Macbeth to kill King Duncan.
  • Noun "spirits" suggests her immoral intentions, which were particularly evident to Jacobean audiences who had seen "Hamlet", as King Claudius is murdered by poison administered through the ear.
  • The phrase both foreshadows the murder of Duncan, and is a metaphor for Lady Macbeth's wishes to poison Macbeth's mind with ambition
• "come you spirits that tend on mortal thought unsex me here"


  -Lady Macbeth invites the the spirits shows she has embraced the supernatural.

  -"unsex me here"- explicit rejection of traditional female behaviour

  -lady Macbeth rejects the typical patriarchal society of the time. Not only is LM prepared to be cruel, but the adjective "direst" highlights the extreme lengths she is willing to go to