“Virginitie, Mariage And Widowhood” (Mainer). Stage One:

In Shakespare’s play Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s destiny is formed by her own actions through mind and free-will. In act I, Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to murder Duncan, even though Macbeth was strongly against it. Lady Macbeth is very successful at persuading him to go against his better judgment. She entirely changes the stereotype of women being kind and caring in the first act. After Macbeth writes home telling of his murderous plans, Lady Macbeth begins talking to evil spirits. Because women often lack the ruthlessness to kill someone, Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to make her male. One of the most vivid descriptions of Lady Macbeth’s wickedness is directly after Macbeth announces to her he does not want to kill Duncan. This speech symbolizes Lady Macbeth’s evilness. She is ruthless, because of her evil accounts for the murders that occur throughout the play. Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to commit murders that will make them king

Lady Macbeth is known for her characteristics because of her neglect to human emotions and her harsh language. For example; “Unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe…” (I.V.40-44). With Lady Macbeth’s characteristics, she is easy to accuse. Readers may see it as Lady Macbeth prompting Duncan’s murder with her words, but it is Macbeth’s weakness in his manhood that provokes the murder, “Marshall'st me the way I was going,” (II.i.41-42). Before the murder she tells macbeth the murderous ideas and questions his manhood because of his previous

In Medieval times women were viewed as innocent beings who must be controlled by the men in their family; however, in Shakespeare’s Macbeth a woman is the mastermind behind the start of several horrendous deeds. Lady Macbeth was a woman with determination. When it was prophesized that Macbeth would be king, Lady Macbeth wished that her husband would immediately be at her side so she “may pour [her] spirits in [his] ear” (1. 5. 25). Lady Macbeth wanted nothing less that Macbeth to be king. In order for Macbeth to ascend to the throne, it needed to be emptied of King Duncan. Macbeth was an ambitious man but he was not evil, he would not commit murder to gain the throne; therefore, Lady Macbeth took it upon herself to see her husband crowned king. By making Lady Macbeth the mastermind behind a murder, Shakespeare disputed the typical role of women which labeled them as innocent and harmless beings.

The most notable scene where Shakespeare conveys this is Act 1 Scene 5. Lady Macbeth says, “unsex me here”, demanding elimination of all womanly attributes. She adds, “take my milk for gall”. This demonstrates she is reluctant to be a nurturing, mother figure. She thinks femininity is useless; she could accomplish more as a male. In the Elizabethan/Jacobean era, women were often subjugated – made to submit to and follow men, regarded as weak and in need of protection. Given no control, women were forced to stay home and bear children. Lady Macbeth yearns liberation from these stereotypes and standards. Her authority cravings lead her to tell Macbeth, “Leave all the rest to me”, seeking dominance. Macbeth is essential to succeed so she could be interpreted as somewhat manipulating him into committing larger crimes – namely

This is apparent when she deals with Macbeth leaving the gory daggers at the site of the murder, “Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead/ Are but as pictures; ‘tis the eye of childhood/ That fears a painted devil.”(scene 2 act 2 56-58). Macbeth is portrayed as emotionally unstable and soft as he is afraid to even go back into the room where the murder took place, “I’ll go no more/ I am afraid to think what I have done”(scene 2 act 2 54-55). This interaction between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth really shows the unusual roles one another play in there relationship because in a situation where someone is murdered or their is a serious crime, women aren’t usually the ones who are brave and strong minded about it, men are.

On the contrary, Lady Macbeth begins as a ruthless woman. She has a manipulative and controlling character, convincing Macbeth to kill King Duncan; she will do anything to gain power. When she says, “How tender ‘tis to love the babe…I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out” (I.vii. 55-58), she shows her ruthlessness and her “bad” ambition. In her “role reversal” with Macbeth, she gains somewhat of a conscience and realizes her guilt. When she tells him, “You must leave this” (III. ii. 35), she wants Macbeth to forget about his plan to murder Banquo’s family. She is very hesitant about committing another murder and does not want Macbeth to follow through with his plan.

We see her as a suppressed female clawing to power through men. The most notable scene where Shakespeare conveys this is Act 1 Scene 5. He has Lady Macbeth say, “unsex me here”, demanding elimination of all womanly attributes. She also says, “take my milk for gall”. This demonstrates she does not want to be a nurturing, mother figure. Lady Macbeth thinks her femininity is useless and that she could accomplish more as a male. In the Elizabethan/Jacobean era, women were often subjugated – made to submit to and follow men, regarded as weak and in need of protection. Given no control, women were forced to stay home and bear children. Lady Macbeth yearns liberation from these stereotypes and ideal standards of her time. Her authority cravings lead her to tell Macbeth, “Leave all the rest to me” – seeking dominance. Her husband is essential to succeed so she can be interpreted as somewhat manipulating him into committing larger crimes – namely

Lady Macbeth understands Macbeth’s lust for the throne, and lusts for it herself. She also understands his ambition, but feels that her husband might regret and decide against killing Duncan to steal his throne, as she regards to Macbeth as “full o’ the milk of human kindness” (1.5.4). Since Lady Macbeth fears that Macbeth would turn against her and not go through with the plan, she decides that it must be up to her to get it done correctly. She asks that only the “direst cruelty” (1.5.33) fill her, as she gathers everything that is evil to her in order to murder Duncan. Even though Macbeth was hesitant over the idea of murdering Duncan, his wife convinces him that acting on his impulse of killing Duncan is the right thing to do. This shown when Macbeth starts to second guess the thought of murdering his king, and that it should not be done. However, his wife verbally harasses him into agreeing. Lady Macbeth questions his love for her, questions his masculinity, and criticizes his desire to be king by saying, “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” (1.5.49-51). As his successfully offends him, he decides that he needs to prove his manhood, his love of his wife, and his ambition to be king, he agrees to murder Duncan.

     Lady Macbeth progresses throughout the play from a seemingly savage and heartless creature to a very delicate and fragile woman. In the beginning of the play, she is very ambitious and hungry for power. She pushes Macbeth to kill Duncan in order to fulfill the witches’ prophecy. In Act I, Scene 6, she asks the gods to make her emotionally strong like a man in order to help her husband go through with the murder plot. 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!” Also, she does everything in her power to convince Macbeth that he would be wrong not to kill Duncan. In Act I,

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth Lady Macbeth is depicted as an ambiguous, strong, power hungry woman , but the fact that she is a woman sets her back. In act one she states ” That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood. Stop up the access and passage to remorse”

Shakespeare begins to convey Lady Macbeth as dominant,controlling and manipulative. unlike in the Jacobean era where women were inferior and the men were more authoritative in a relationship. However, she counters this as behaves manipulatively. Lady Macbeth describes the murder scheme vividly, "When in swinish sleep Their drenched natures lie as in a death, What cannot you and I perform upon th'unguarded Duncan?"

By emasculating Macbeth, she persuades him into going through with the murder, ultimately by diminishing his sexuality. “When you durst do it, then you were a man./Be so much more than man. ”(I.VII.51-52) Lady Macbeth is clearly the driving force in her husband’s evil doings as she makes Macbeth feel powerless, and less of a man if he does not go through with her plan to kill King Duncan. As a female, she is portrayed as strong, powerful and wicked.

In the play, Lady macbeth is very set on her opinions of what a man and women are supposed to be like. In the text, she says, “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.” Here she is telling us that when Macbeth made the decision to murder Duncan, he was being a man, but now that he does not want to follow through with his decision, he will essentially be a coward. When Lady Macbeth was dealing with all the people being murdered, she was pushing aside the feminine part of her being. She very strongly believes that women are weak and fragile things and that while dealing with all that was going on around her, she could not be feminine. She had to be strong. But obviously, it was all too much for he pushed aside her “feminine” feelings so much that it was driving her

The women in Macbeth, namely Lady Macbeth, contradict these expectations through their commanding, and ambitious tones. During that second half of act one Lady Macbeth is portrayed as the ruling figure in the house. Instead of being a grateful and fulfilling housewife she instead pushes and commands Macbeth to commit assassination. She berates him when he falters and asked if he would rather, “live like a coward in thine own esteem.” (Shakespeare)

Throughout the play, ‘Macbeth’, Shakespeare continuously presents Lady Macbeth’s lust for power and control over her husband as being the driving force for the events of the play. Lady Macbeth controls Macbeth through her constant emasculation towards him. While trying to convince Macbeth to murder Duncan, Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth’s masculinity in Act I Scene VII, where she states “Was the hope drunk… and wakes it now, to look so green and pale”. This shows how the relationship of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth diverged from the stereotypes of Elizabethan England. Elizabethan women were seen as being subservient to men, and heavily reliant on their male counterparts, but the opposite is shown in the relationship of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.