Lady Macbeth

• 'look like th' innocent flower, / But be the serpent under 't' (1,5)

  • Lady Macbeth thinks that Macbeth is not cunning or devious enough. She thinks that he struggles to trick people. 
  • She tells her husband to think about the facial expression that he is pulling. He should think about it to hide his true intentions. She uses the following simile
  • Lady Macbeth wants her husband to be able to encourage people to trust him, and then to betray them without warning.
• 'Hie thee hither, / That I may pour my spirits in thine ear'.

  • When the audience first sees Lady Macbeth on stage, she is reading the letter from her husband. Even though Macbeth has not spoken about trying to take the crown in his letter, Lady Macbeth immediately wants to do this. 
  • In her speech, she summarises her plan to manipulate Macbeth into going after the crown
• 'Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here'(1,5).

  • When she asks to be 'unsex[ed]', she is asking the spirits to remove the feminine aspects of her character. 
  • Women were supposed to be gentle and kind. She wants to be cruel and not feel regret over any of her actions: 'fill me from the crown to the toe topfull / Of direst cruelty' (1,5). 
  • She wants to be able to force her husband to murder the king.
• • Shakespeare fills her speech in Act 1, Scene 5 with imperative verbs to show that she is taking control: 'Come', 'fill', 'stop', 'take'.
  • She wants to be harder so that she can commit these crimes. These characteristics were definitely seen as masculine, but not honourable.