Macbeth is the real villain and Lady Macbeth is just a partner in crime, egging him on because of her desire to be Queen. Macbeth was loyal to his King and was an excellent soldier. However his wife, Lady Macbeth could see a better future for Macbeth as King after Macbeth tells her about the witches and their prophesies in a letter. Despite these conflicting ideas, it was Macbeth himself who decided to murder Duncan and the others. It seems that most people believe that Macbeth is the real villain of the play, after firstly killing the King but then Banquo and Macduff’s family but through Macbeth’s own ambition and desire for power, Lady Macbeth was able to manipulate and evoke weaknesses in Macbeth’s character to cause his respectable needs as a loyal solider, to turn into evil motivations.
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.
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.
The play is about Macbeth so why do we have this fascination with Lady Macbeth, I shall delve in to the deep character that is Lady Macbeth and find out if she is a fiend like queen. I can see why most people would believe that Lady Macbeth is presented as a fiend like queen, when she gets Macbeths letter as she immediately begins to plot the murder of Duncan this is out of her selfish desire to bear the name “queen” that drives her she comes over fiend like by using violent language, emotional blackmail, insults his masculinity and attacks his weaknesses to help commit the murder. Lady Macbeth takes full charge of Macbeth’s actions and seems to dominate him. Lady Macbeth calls upon the demons “Come, you spirits” this shows her calling upon evil spirits to help her to commit the deed of killing Duncan also the notion that lady Macbeth is possessed by evil spirits could explain the unnatural darkness, most fiend like. Lady Macbeths plots against killing king Duncan which is God’s appointed monarch, so by murdering him she is going against God which makes her more fiend like.
Macbeth shall sleep no more” (II.2.55-57). He is already panicking regarding what he has done and hearing voices that foreshadow his sleeplessness. Then, Lady Macbeth scolds him for leaving the murder weapon behind and he admits that, “I’ll go no more./ I am afraid to think what I have done./ Look on ‘t again I dare not” (II.2.65-67). He’s terrified by what he has done and cannot bear to return to the scene of his bloody crime. Instead, Lady Macbeth must to there and clean up from his murders.
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”.
Therefore, I believe Manon hates her husband. This gives the impression to the reader that Manon is always negative and is harsh towards her husband, making people believe she is not loving towards him. However, the narrator’s restricted viewpoint could lead us to believe that she is biased and unreliable because she is narrating only from her point of view. Also, at the beginning of the games, Manon has a sympathetic tone towards the slaves and feels sorry for them because she says, “I couldn’t watch anymore.” This suggests that Manon feels ashamed of what she is letting her husband do to the slaves and that she feels sadness building up inside of her towards the slaves being treated horrifically. The dynamic verb of “watch” shows to the reader that Manon feels a little bit of pain towards the slaves and that she feels that they are only being used for torture.
Lady Macbeth is calling upon the gods to “unsex” her so she can proceed and help Macbeth commit the murder of Duncan. During the Shakespearian era, women and men were viewed quite differently. Women, in contrast to men, had the stereotype of kind, calm, and loving. The reason Lady Macbeth wants to “unsex” herself is in order to remove the kindness and calmness and become more manly, or more aggressive and fierce. With this in mind, Lady Macbeth knows that in her time, for a woman to commit a murder is unheard of.
Also that she is his instigation in his plot to kill the king, although there is some theory that he already suggested the murder in the letter but it was never shown in the play. She defiantly has the drive for her husband to become king as she say’s “unsex me here” he shows she wants all compassion in her to be removed so she can kill without remorse or guilt. She is shown as possibly a witch and maybe even an embodiment an evil spirit but most likely she is a miss directed soul. This shows her to be the centre of Macbeths life and strangely for the time to be his equal women were thought of in those as lesser beings this could also show Macbeth as a modern man a man who fells women are equal despite their sex. This links in with Macbeth leaving his wife out of the murdering to save her and her eventual suicide.
This is due to the fact that Macbeth listens to his wife and finally takes what she has to say into thought and carries through with it. The function of this is to create a sense of hostility amongst the audience. Everyone can't believe that Lady Macbeth is encouraging her husband to kill someone and it really makes them uncomfortable and shifts there mood of love towards Lady Macbeth to hate. This mood of the audience is heightened in Act 2 Scene 2 when once again Macbeth has decided that he is going to stop what he is doing although he had already killed Duncan; (This is shown in act 1 scene 7, and act 2, scene 2.) This shows that Macbeth once again was filled with guilt but again his wife contradicted him and led him down the path of evil.