She immediately forces Macbeth to act on the witches prophecies and murder Duncan in his sleep. Later, when Macbeth becomes uncertain about committing the crime, it is his wife who goads and belittles him guilting him into doing something he does not necessarily want to do. When Macbeth returns with the bloody dagger after killing the King, Lady Macbeth gets angry and calls him a coward, questioning his manhood, again manipulating her husband to get what she wants – the
His decisions are, however, to some extent, made under the influence of Lady Macbeth, who manipulates him in every way to guide him to success. The witches and their prophecies play a significant role in Macbeth’s downfall. Throughout the play, the witches deceive and fool Macbeth by giving equivocal prophecies, evoking his inner desire for power and swaying him to take evil action. They exploit his ambition from the very beginning, telling Macbeth he will be “Thane of Cawdor” and “King of Scotland” without specifying when or how. This, along with the proven credibility of their first prophecy – Thane of Cawdor – awakens Macbeth’s hidden ambition and triggers his desire to fulfill the last prophecy – King of Scotland, giving him the thought of killing Duncan, “Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair” (Macbeth, I,III, 45) and thus, providing the first stepping stone towards his demise.
From this point one hears Lady Macbeth praying to devilish spirits to take away her femininity with the proclamation of: ‘…Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,…’ (Act I, Scene V, lines 39-40). With this interesting claim of needing to be of the male gender to carryout deeds of ambition and violence, Lady Macbeth is instilled as the overly theatrical and slightly disturbed personality of Macbeth. This obvious portrayal of eccentricity and
She threatened Macbeth, ‘live a coward in thine own esteem’ (Act 1 Scene 7), by questioning his manhood and calling him a coward. She seemed to be in control and took leadership over her husband usually dictating his actions. She had him in the palm of her hand. The one time when Macbeth decided to do what was right and stand up to his wife he failed and still went along with her plan. The one time when we knew that Lady Macbeth was still human and still had feelings was towards the end of the play when the guilt drives her mad and she commits suicide.
You can tell that in the beginning Macbeth never wanted to kill Duncan; in act I witches come about and tell a prophesy that Macbeth will rule over Scotland, which puts the thought of killing Duncan in his head. “Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs, against the use of nature?,” in other words, he’s asking himself why he’s thinking of murdering Duncan when it makes his hair stand on end and his heart pound inside his chest, obviously he’s uncomfortable with the thought. Lady Macbeth does succeed in convincing him to kill King Duncan by calling him a coward saying he’s not a real man. Finally Macbeth cracks and goes through with it. After the sickening deed of murder had been completed, the next morning Lennox and Macduff, who had been called upon the king to
I have given suck, and know(60) 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… (Act 1, Scene 7, p. 24) She describes nursing a baby and then bashing its brains in. Not a pretty picture, and certainly not the product of a stable mind. Finally, Lady Macbeth’s instability really comes out after she sees the consequences of her actions. She basically loaded her husband like a weapon and pointed him at Duncan. She also created a monster, because he goes on a murdering rampage to secure his place.
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:
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.
She may very well be the underlying cause of all evil in the play; she tricked King Duncan, used her husband, and made her guests believe that, rather than feeling guilty for his crime, Macbeth was sick. When Lady Macbeth invites King Duncan to come to the castle
Before Lady Macbeth plots to murder the king, Macbeth receives some very ironic news. First and foremost, three witches address Macbeth as “Thane of Glamis” and “Thane of Cawdor”; additionally, they tell him “Macbeth that shalt be king hereafter” and Banquo “thou shalt get kings, though thou be none” (I, iii, 48-67). Macbeth is already Thane of Glamis, and later he becomes Thane of Cawdor, because these two predictions have already become true, he feels puzzled because King Duncan is still living. Macbeth gradually starts to think about murdering Duncan, however [“His thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical’] which Macbeth does not take seriously, [“shakes so his single state of man that function”] (I, iii, 139-140). He also feels that “If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown me without my