If any woman is to be held responsible for Macbeth’s demise, let it be Lady Macbeth, for rather than warning Macbeth against the witches’ prophecies, she decides to encourage her husband to kill the King. Lady Macbeth is obviously the dominant partner of the two when that role should naturally fall to the male partner. She is the mastermind behind all of Macbeth’s evil deeds. Lady Macbeth has such greed and desire to be Queen of Scotland, that she will do practically anything to seize the throne. She immediately forces Macbeth to act on the witches prophecies and murder Duncan in his sleep.
Madea is the wife of Jason, who was abandoned by him and left with no one because she was exiled from her original land. Madea shows that being betrayed by Jason she needs to get back at him by killing his wife and her kids eventually becoming criminally insane. Lady Macbeth and Madea define themselves through their husbands because both commit or persuade acts of violence for personal gain eventually driving themselves insane. Lady Macbeth wants Macbeth to become King of Scotland and she wants to become the Queen of Scotland. When she hears of the witches prophecy that Macbeth will become King she is power hungry.
"He's here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subjects, Strong both against the deed; then as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself" (1.7.12-16) This is where Lady Macbeth comes into Macbeths fall. Because of Lady Macbeths strong will, she convinces Macbeth to kill Duncan so that he may become king. She becomes so obsessed about this crime that she even contiplats doing it herself. "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." (1.6.35-38) Her drive behind Macbeth drove him to kill Duncan.
Lady Macbeth calls on the spirits of darkness and evil to replace her nurturing and feminine qualities with remorseless cruelty. Macbeth is appalled of the thought of killing his king and can think of many reasons for not going ahead with the murder. So Lady Macbeth manipulates him by accusing him of being a coward and unmanly, until he agrees to proceed with the murder. Lady Macbeth presents her plan that when Duncanâs servants are asleep, he will enter Duncanâs chamber and kill him. Macbeth carries out this murder so the third prophecies will be fulfilled.
Lady Macbeth is willing to do anything to make this prophecy a reality. As part of her plan, she determines that she must persuade Macbeth to murder Duncan. However, she fears that Macbeth’s kindness will hamper her ambitions: Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it. (1.5. 13-18) Lady Macbeth voices her concern over Macbeth’s nature, stating that he is “too full o’ the milk of human kindness” to commit the murder that Lady Macbeth desires.
Macbeth struggled with this concept, contemplating whether he should carry out the evil deed. He conjured up a list of reasons to avoid killing King Duncan. Lady Macbeth then challenged Macbeth’s manhood, referring to him as a coward. Only then did he take it upon himself to kill the king. Although, Macbeth takes the dagger and kills King Duncan, Lady Macbeth was the one who planned to kill him that night and frame his guards.
But it isn’t just a role reversal in her behaving as a man might. Lady Macbeth is more indecent and conniving because she has maintained her manipulative feminisms which ironically diminish her husband, making him appear weak and without resolve. In the end when she finally confronts her own conscience to know how horrible she has been, the Lady collapses, disintegrates and disappears. How awful. Over and over and over again Lady Macbeth challenges her husband’s manhood and his will to kill and seize Duncan’s throne in Act I:
She tries to be reasonable, saying, "Why, worthy thane, / You do unbend your | |noble strength, to think / So brainsickly of things" (2.2.41-43), but he's paralyzed with horror. Finally, she has to do what he should | |have done. She takes the daggers from him, carries them back to place them with the grooms, and smears the grooms with the King's blood. | |When she returns, Lady Macbeth hears Macbeth talking about his bloody hands, and she comments, "My hands are of your colour; but I shame / | |To wear a heart so white" (2.2.61-62). She means that her hands are red, too (because she has been busy smearing the King's blood on the | |grooms), but that she would be ashamed to have a heart as white as Macbeth's.
In the play Macbeth is persuaded by Lady Macbeth to kill Duncan in order to get the “ornament of life,” which would be taking the thrown. Before the murder of Duncan Lady Macbeth says that, “Glamis thou art and Cawdor; and shalt be what, not without ambition, but without the illness that should attend it,” in order to show that Macbeth must turn to murder as a way to gain power after Macbeth has heard the predictions of the weird sisters. Lady Macbeth explains that murder is the answer to the obstacle of Ducan, but she fears that Macbeth is much too kind to do such a thing. Because Macbeth is a genuine person, Lady Macbeth must manipulate him into the murder to achieve power for her and her husband. Lady Macbeth makes Macbeth look vulnerable which makes Macbeth feel pressured into the killing of Duncan.
Her hallucination of the blood on her hands and her constant efforts to wash it off shows the suffering of having a guilty conscience, which is causing her to go insane. We later find out that she commits suicide due to it. The purpose of blood changes for the last time to a symbol of freedom when Macduff says, "I have no words: / My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain / Than terms can give thee out!" (Act 5, Scene 8, Lines 9-10) and then goes on to slay Macbeth. After analyzing all the different uses of blood throughout the book you can see how Shakespeare uses “blood” to show the change and transformation of characters.