Character: Lady Macbeth

The character of Lady Macbeth is one of the most unforgettable in the entire Shakespearean drama. Like her husband, she is fired by the passion of ambition. She exercises great influence over her husband's decisions and actions. In fact, Macbeth is motivated in the play by the will of Lady Macbeth.

Shakespeare wrote a number of tragedies, the greatest of which are Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello. His tragedies fulfil the fundamental requirements of tragedy as expounded by Aristotle in his Poetics. A Shakespearean tragedy is a story of one person, the hero, who is a person of great eminence and the cause of his tragedy is some fatal flaw in his character. In some of his tragedies we find some abnormal characters, supernatural chance or accident and conflict.

Lady Macbeth is the fourth witch

A Shakespearean tragedy is a tale of exceptional suffering which leads to the death of several characters including the death of the hero. In Macbeth several characters meet death. Macbeth, being inspired by the Witches and his wife, assassinates King Duncan to become the king of Scotland. He kills the two guards lest they should plead their innocence. Banquo, Lady Macduff and her little child, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are also killed.

Being informed about the prophets of the witches, Lady Macbeth jumps to the conclusion that the shortest way for her husband to attain the crown is by assassinating the present King Duncan. But she knows that though Macbeth is ambitious, he does not possess the necessary wickedness that he needs in the present situation. Therefor, she decides to "pour" her spirits into her ear and "chastise" him with the value of her tongue.

When a messenger gives her the news that Duncan is coming to her castle to stay there as a guest, she looks up to it as the required opportunity to dispose of Duncan. At that time, she calls upon the supernatural spirits to replace the milk in her breast with poison. She appears to the spirits:

"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."

As soon as Macbeth arrives, she straightaway hinted at the proposed murder of Duncan and advised him in the following manner:

"Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it."

Lady Macbeth wants the old king killed at any cost, but Macbeth tells her that he "will proceed no further in this business." She refers to his previous promise and to his fickleness of mind, which is not worthy of a brave soldier. When Macbeth admits to her that his golden reputation might lose its "gloss," she sets out to strengthen his resolve by mocking his perceived weakness. She adds a distinction between masculinity and femininity, in contrast to her own self-proclaimed manliness, she pours scorn upon her husband's back of courage. She tells him he is "green," "a coward," and that he resembles the proverbial "poor cat" who wanted the fish but would not get its paws wet. Finally, and most damningly, she tells her that she herself would go so far as to take her own nursing baby and dabble in its brains if necessary. She counsels him to "screw [his] courage to the sticking place" and details the way they will murder the king. They will wait until he falls asleep, she says, and thereafter intoxicate his bodyguards with drink. This will allow them to murder Duncan and lay the blame on the two drunken bodyguards. Macheth is astonished by her cruelty but resigns to follow her plans. Thus, in order to persuade her husband to murder Duncan, Lady Macbeth uses her persuasive eloquence to the best of her power.

Charecter of Lady Macbeth

When Macbeth expresses his fear of the consequences of his failure to assassinate Duncan, Lady Macbeth assures him and says that when Duncan has gone to sleep, she will make his two guards drunk with wine so that, when Duncan has been murdered, suspicion for the murder might fall upon those two guards who would be found lying in the stupor of drunken steep. Macbeth now feels convinced and says:

"I am settled, and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat."

After stabbing the sleeping Duncan to death, Macbeth, in his confusion, brought back the daggers with him instead of keeping them by the side of the sleeping guards. She accuses him of a lack of courage and undertakes to do the job herself. She snatches away the daggers from his hand, and just to shame her husband, she very sharply and boldly asserts that she herself will place the daggers in the right place, and if Duncan is still bleeding, she will besmear the faces of the guard with his blood so that it may appear that the guards have committed the crime. Thus, Lady Macbeth appears as a courageous woman who snatches away the daggers from her husband's hand and smears the guards with blood.

Macbeth dies like a tragic hero. He meets Young Siward and challenges him to fight. Macbeth easily kills the young man. But the noise of the fight attracts Macduff and he runs to confront Macbeth, Macbeth tells Macduff that he does not fear anyone who was born of a woman. Macduff, however, tells Macbeth that he was removed from his mother's womb by a caesarean operation, and was not technically born of a woman. On hearing this Macbeth curses the Witches for misguiding him by making ambiguous prophecies. Macduff kills Macbeth and returns to Malcolm with his head lanced onto a pole. Thus, he shows courage in the end, and so, in this way, Macbeth dies as a hero.

The suffering of the tragic hero arouses pity and fear. But the fall of Macbeth arouses less sympathy than that of other tragic heroes such as Hamlet, King Lear and Othello, because of his unscrupulous ambition. Macbeth is different from other tragic heroes. He forfeits our sympathy after the middle of the play. He begins as a hero but ends as a villain. From a brave soldier and noble person, Macbeth reaches a state when he is a soulless person and finally slaughtered like a beast. But when he meets his doom, we feel that poetic justice has been done.

Thus, Lady Macbeth's influence on her husband plays a crucial role in developing the main action of the play. Instigated by his wife, Macbeth murdered Duncan. By murdering Duncan, Macbeth sows the seed of his tragedy.