Lady MacBeth
Lady MacBeth is one of Shakespeare's greatest and most intriguing female
characters. She is evil, seductive, and witch-like all at the same time. However, during the
play we see her in two different ways. At the time when we first meet her, she is a brutally
violent, power wanting witch, and later on she turns to a shameful suicidal grieving woman.
At the beginning of the MacBeth, Lady MacBeth is very savage and vicious. She
thinks nothing of killing King Duncan. She has no sense of what is wrong and right, and
believes that it is perfectly moral to do the deed of murder. She states that to not go
through with the deed would be horrible to yourself, and that you would be a coward in
your own eyes.
'Wouldst thou have that which thou esteem'st the ornament
of life, and live a coward in thine own esteem,'
She states that if she was MacBeth and did not jump at this perfect opportunity, that if a
child, being fed at her breast, where as Duncan is, king, she would tear it from her and
'dash'd the brains out' to have the opportunity MacBeth does.
Lady Macbeth by George Cattermole.
The sleepwalking Lady Macbeth
Sarah Siddons in the Sleepwalking SceneThis shows how mad and
sadistic she was. She had absolutely no self-conscience, and thought nothing about the
wrong they were soon to commit.
Later on, after the murders, she, unlike MacBeth, still shows no signs of a
conscience. She is very cool and collected, while MacBeth hallucinates and goes
temporarily mad. Lady MacBeth on the other hand, takes everything calmly. She takes
the daggers back to the King's room, smears blood on the drunken guards, and attempts to
destroy all evidence of MacBeth ever being there. She knows what needs to be done and
does it without any hesitation or fear.