Macbeth versus Lady Macbeth and Lady Macbeth versus Macbeth

Lady Macbeth is one of the most important characters of the Shakespearian tragedy “Macbeth”. Without a character as Lady Macbeth this tragedy would have had a different solution,maybe it would never exist. Lady Macbeth appears for the first time in the 5th scene of act one while she’s reading Macbeth’s letter. Since this time she has been Macbeth’s interior voice:she knows her husband and she knows also his reactions(” 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: what thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win. thou’ldst have, great Glamis, That which cries ‘Thus thou must do, if thou have it; And that which rather thou dost fear to do Than wishest should be undone.’ Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear; And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round, Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crown’d withal. .act I,scene II).But let’s focus on this character’s behaviour.

Lady Macbeth is a strange character: sometimes she behaves as if she were a man. (”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”, act one, scene seven)

She is always inviting Macbeth to be more determined if he wants to seize power. (“When you durst do it, then you were a man; and, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man”, act one, scene seven). But later she understands that their power is not a real one, because they haven’t gained it thanks to Macbeth’s courage or being and so she cannot enjoy their power. In the last act, for example, we can see Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, and afflicted by a feeling of guilt as a result of all the murders. She has been reduced to sleepwalking through the castle, desperately trying to wash away an invisible bloodstain (“What, will these hands ne’er be clean”, act V scene I).

Often She proves to be worthless: she only wants to satisfy her feeling of greatness (“My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white”, act two, scene two. This woman is very determined: the crime, the deceit, the treason aren’t obstacles to her silk of power. She is the symbol of the passion that blinds, of the big and unlimited desire of success . She hasn’t material and moral limits. Lady Macbeth has a cold and calculator logic that is characteristic of a monster. She rarely shows any sympathy towards any characters throughout the time of the play. When she finds out the prophecies given to Macbeth by the witches, she immediately takes action and creates a plan. She also manipulates her husband by questioning his manhood and his love for her. This aspect is contrasting with her fragility and her vulnerability that are typical characteristics of woman being. She is the “Black Lady” and represents the black light of the spirit that is revealed in the point of convergence between apparent well and effective evil. http://www.lindaroark-strummer.com/7.htm

Considering Lady Macbeth not as a symbolic representative of the female mankind the audience has also to evaluate her in order to her human contradictions. She shows the different aspects of her personality depending on the different situations she has to face. As a matter of fact in some situations she does not have the courage to take action as it happens when she declares she has not the courage to kill Duncan, the king, because he reminds her of her father (“Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t”, act two, scene two). A further example of Lady Macbeth’s contradictory behaviour is when she brings the bleeding daggers herself into the room where Duncan is lying dead, the same room she didn’t want to go to kill the king. As a matter of fact she hides her insecurity even if when Macbeth and she project Duncan’s murder she looks very calm and determined. This is an aspect that is repeated many times in the play, but in the end she collapses and she becomes mad. She sees her hands that are dirty of blood even if her hands are clear.

She is usually a strong woman, but in some situations she shows some fragilities. As a matter of fact at the end of the play she goes mad. Therefore she isn’t always able to manage her emotions. External Link This gives rise to a question: is she really as strong as she seems? She no doubt has a domineering personality, but she isn’t as strong as she would like to appear. As a matter of fact, even if she controls her husband, she isn’t in control of herself, and, as stated before, in the end she goes mad. To understand how Lady Macbeth’s contradictory behaviour coexists it could be useful to think that in this character the rational and the emotional side are often fighting one against the other. Since the rational and the emotional side are juxtaposed, the character sums up all the human features, therefore the woman is analyzed by Shakespeare with her own weight, gaining independence from the male figure in believes, attitudes, judgements; but remaining strictly connected to men about her social value (As a matter of fact she is called in the play with the name of her husband: Lady Macbeth).

The character of Lady Macbeth can be considered an important image of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Her characterization is strongly dependent on imagery and progresses dramatically with the advancement of the play. As a matter of fact at the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is introduced as a dominant, controlling, heartless wife with an obsessive ambition to steal kingship for her husband. After she changes gradually, for the Duncan’s murder and at the end for her folly. In particular she can be considered the most contradictory character. As a matter of fact Shakespeare uses a lot of elements in opposition (colour, atmosphere, character’ attitudes, and other images) - but Lady Macbeth is the most relevant one because gathers by herself concepts like – wickedness, ambition, fortitude, craftiness - and at the same time – penitent that is sense of guilty, unbalance and irrationality. She was created by the author with a complex personality to realize a character that considers different aspects of the human being; as a matter of fact Shakespeare lived in a peculiar historical period (Renaissance) where human values were emphasized in all aspects. In a depth analysis Lady Macbeth can be approximately considered a real character – with different undertones (sometimes in a very opposition). To emphasize the character, the author creates some associations with colours using the contrast -light/darkness – (he provides a common imagery of light to represent goodness and innocence and darkness to symbolize evil). As a matter of fact sometimes Lady Macbeth is represented with a candelabra in hand. Until about the half of the tragedy Macbeth has been tormented with vision, nightmares and disturbances in his sleep while Lady Macbeth scolds him for his weakness. Her speeches in the first acts are eloquent and smooth. Later Lady Macbeth’s language is choppy, jumping from idea to idea as her state of mind changes. Her sentences are short and unpolished. In the first part of the play she’s so strong that she can make Macbeth do what she wants; Macbeth is able to become independent only at the end of the play, when someone tells him that his wife died. In this moment he is so independent from her that he doesn’t care of her death at all. This absence of feelings becomes evident in Macbteh because of the horrors that he had to bear; but they have been caused by Macbeth himself. Shakespeare cares a lot about the characterization of Lady Macbeth because she is the knot that links Mind and Facts. She is a sort of guide, an expedient create by Shakespeare wit to bend the storyline in a certain way. She is the reason of Macbeth choice and as a consequence she decided for the life of many people. She controlled Macbeth and she addressed him to commit murders. Macbeth decided to follow his wife’s plans also because he wanted the same but he wouldn’t have done so much alone. Reading the play and seeing Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s changing we can affirm that the first is the body and the second the mind of a single entity. One has to organize and the other has to act. What’s better than this? Two minds are always better than one, but if two minds are together have to share not only strength but also weakness and this little consideration will bring the end of the king and the queen.

Lady Macbeth has a preminent role in the tragedy. She is introduced to public like a woman with a strong personality, very full of feelings and extreme passions. These characteristics are already very delineated when she appears in the fifth scene of the first action, while she reads the letter that her husband has sent. The relation between the two partners is truly particular. In the speeches, who is determinated and who is weak traspare clearly. She knows that her husband has scruples in catching up the aim not legally and therefore she knows also that she will have to spur and to convince him. She knows well the world in which she lives, a world dominated by men, and she realizes that she has to make space in itself for traditionally masculine qualities in order to catch up the power. This is the reason why she pronounces her distorted “prayer” to the spiritsExternal Link “That tend on mortal thoughts” (I, V, 41). But why Lady Macbeth wants so strongly her husband to become king? In effects, Lady Macbeth behaves with her husband just like a mother: she reassures, reproaches him when the will lacks him, encourages him when he feel lost. There is an eternal and strong tie between them; he is the only person she has; It is not a case, in fact, that her fragility comes outside as the tie between them is weakened. The isolation to which she is forced, and the remorse for the action against Duncan inexorably carry her slowly to the madness and then to the suicide. From her husband, that she loved so much and that loved her so much, she will receive a last thought before he decoy on the battlefield, where he will find the death, too. This is perhaps one of the most distressing moments: “Out, out brief candle! Life’ s but a walking shadow;a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” (V, V, 23-28)

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are the protagonists of the play and they are in comparison, as a matter of fact, as the first reaction to the murder, Macbeth is disturbed while his wife is calm and determined. But they will have a different end. Lady Macbeth cannot bear the sense of guilty up to the end, indeed, Macbeth arrives at the end and becomes aware of what he did regreting all he has done. He understands that he was wrong when he thought that if he killed people to obtain power, he would live better. Macbeth needs power to hide his insecurity and Lady Macbeth seems to feel useless as if she were ONLY Macbeth’s wife. You can understand that thing because in the text there are some examples: Macbeth needs to meet the three Witches to be sure of his power. Lady Macbeth demostrates her useless when she wants absolutely that Macbeth kills Duncan to become important and she underlines her fragilty because she said that she couldn’t kill the King because he looks as her father. Therefore both of them have simile behaviours: apparently strong but in deepth weak.

He understands that he could live better without having to kill any person, because now it had seen died enough, so he decides to face the truth, and he decides to go encounter to the soldiers, ordering to its servants of wearing him the armor, also knowing that probably it would have gone towards the death; but by now Macbeth does not fear more the death. And in fact he will die, but now he dies like an hero (a negative hero, of course), not like a common murder that killed his enemies to obtain the power.

The relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is a very close but rather strange one. Although the couple love and adore each other greatly there are a lot of things than Macbeth does not understand about Lady Macbeth. He does not realize that she knows his weakness of character and his strengths and therefore can manipulate his behavior. In addition to this, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth demonstrate the murderer’s need for confession to lessen the heavy burden of guilt. Both characters are troubled by a lack of sleep and have a form of nervous breakdown. Macbeth, seeing Banquo’s ghost, blurts out his guilt in front of the banquet guests; Lady Macbeth does the same, walking and talking in her sleep in front of the Doctor and Waiting-woman.

In my opinion Shakespeare decided to put into the play two such different characters as these two are with the aim of showing how the appeal doesn’t reflect everything: a brave warrior as Macbeth is used to be considered a sure and determined person, but at the end we discover he is not so sure then. On the contrary, a simple woman who has only the merit of being the Macbeth’s Lady (following the way she will be called in the whole story; just to underline the fact she was someone only in relation of someone else) can show a temperament out of any forecasting. When I talk about self-confidence I mean the determination they use to complete their tasks, being aware that them both will have terrible regrets for their actions. Clothing doesn’t distinguish the monk: that’s the lesson Shakespeare wants to convey associating these two characters.

Lady MacBeth is an important charater in the drama becuase at the beginning she shows to have a strong and resolute temper, and she seems to suject Macbeth and to tell him what to do. But, in the end, she loses her personality and seems to get crazy, and as well as MacBeth she doesn’t have the control of the situation. She can’t sleep in the night, and people around her believe she’s lost. I think Lady Macbeth is an imortant character because in the end she dies, and in front of this news MacBeth shows how he has lost his personality too, because he doesn’t say nothing.