But, she is afraid of his personality ‘too full o’th milk of human kindness’ and decides to take matters into her own hands. This is also the scene where we hear her first famous soliloquy which is ‘unsex me here’ when she calls on the evil spirits. Really, she wants to be the same as the three witches, but because of who she is, she has to repress all her inner feelings and her conscience in order to carry on with her plan to murder Duncan. She has to be two-faced. When Macbeth returns later in the scene, she immediately pounces onto him and tries to persuade him to murder the King and she says it in a very manipulative way.
Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth to show this all in one character but he also shows the part of silent but not until the end. Like women or females in general she is most complex and filled full of turmoil was and is Lady Macbeth. Her character alone had a complete personality change. Her personality change is not the important part it is the importance of why her personality changes is the main point. Shakespeare uses her to show how a controlling person can become submissive due to predominant part of grief and guilt.
To beguile the time, look like the time, bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue. Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t” (p.191). This encouragement pressures Macbeth to kill the king. Lady Macbeth takes it upon her self to urge her husband to believe that it is all right to kill Duncan. This shows her bold and powerful character.
Lady Macbeth was one Shakespeare’s most courageous female characters. She convinced her husband to cruelly kill Duncan and urged him to be strong in the murder’s aftermath. Fortunately she was eventually scarred by the effect of Macbeth’s animosity towards her. In each case, ambition—helped, of course, by the hurtful predictions of the witches that’s what drove the couple to extreme insanity. The problem, the play suggests, is that once someone decides to use violence to further their quest for power, it is difficult to stop them.
When she says "Come you spirits that tend on murderous thoughts, unsex me," and "make thick my blood, stop th'access and passage to remorse," she is already calling on evil spirits to take away her feminine nature, and to stop her feeling any pity, remorse or compassion; Lady Macbeth is determined to assist Macbeth in murdering Duncan. From this early point, it is already evident that she is contemplating, and intends to take part in a murder so that her husband could have the status he had always wanted, but had been too weak to obtain. When Macbeth enters, Lady Macbeth replies: "O never shall sun that morrow see." When Macbeth informs her Duncan will be leaving the following day. Here, she blatantly reveals that she intends to murder Duncan, saying he won't live to see another day.
This forebodes the death of Macbeth and also Lady Macbeth by suggesting that they will not be able to kill the King and live a normal, guilt free life afterwards. Lady Macbeth then creates irony as she mocks Macbeth for thinking this way, she refers to him as a ‘coward’ and insists that this murder is necessary. This part of the play is extremely significant as we realise just how harsh Lady Macbeth is and how far she would really go. She removes any maternal characteristics that she may have had by explaining that her lack of pity would extend so far, that she would murder a baby. “Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out”.
In many scenes, violence is readily available, in which it is normally committed or illustrated by the protagonist, Macbeth. Shakespeare takes the violence and relates it to manliness. Lady Macbeth, who, behind public eyes, is a very savage, threatening force, wants to remove her womanhood in order to commit tyrant crime herself: “The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts / And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers” (Shakespeare, I.5.53). Lady Macbeth is calling upon the gods to “unsex” her so she can proceed and help Macbeth commit the murder of Duncan.
Lady Macbeth reminds Macbeth of his commitment to kill Duncan: “I have given suck, and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.” Lady Macbeth remarks how she would murder a baby if she had made a promise to do so, and that Macbeth should go through with Duncan’s murder because he promised to. Macbeth’s weakness is compensated with Lady Macbeth’s strength, as she points out his flaws, he realizes them and corrects them, and they progress together toward a common goal. Lady Macbeth’s
At first Macbeth agrees, but later Macbeth is having second thoughts on his decision. But Lady Macbeth is sure that being king is what Macbeth wants and that this is the best for both of them. So in response to Macbeth’s uncertainty, she manipulates him by questioning his manhood and his love for her. At one point she wishes that she were not a woman so that she could do it herself ‘‘Unsex me here’’…/’’come to my woman’s breasts, and take my milk for gall’. Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband with remarkable effectiveness, overriding all his objections, when he hesitates to murder, she repeatedly questions his manhood until he feels that he must commit murder to prove himself.
Guilt is constantly seen throughout the play Macbeth driving the characters to question their morals. To the responder it appears that Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind the initial killing of King Duncan influencing her husband Macbeth to commit the evil deeds by threatening him with his man hood by saying “when you do it, then you are a man”. Her tone portrays her dominant nature and her hunger for authority and demonstrates to the responder her strength as a character. However her over confident traits and clear and concise thinking is diminished once the guilt of the crime poisons her conscience. This is demonstrated by her imagining her hands stained by blood and her constantly trying to clean the “damned spot” away and rid her sole of the guilt.