Lady Macbeth: An Evil Wife In Shakespeare's Macbeth

After the victory of Banquo and Macbeth against the king 's traitor Macdonwald the witches presence contract the vibe of manipulation seeking Macbeth as its next victim. As they encounter with Macbeth and Banquo, they start-off questioning the trio of leery ladies. "look not like the inhabitants of the earth, / And yet are on it"; they seem to understand him, and yet he cannot be sure; they "should be women," and yet they are bearded. One by one the witches told Macbeth his upcoming abundance of power leaving him immensely petrified. As a result the prophecies were the contemporary force plaguing Macbeth into slaughtering King Duncan for his aspiration.

Macbeth succumbs to evil and in doing so, betrays his King. You could argue that when he ‘wore the Thane of Cawdor’s robes’ he became a traitor like the Thane of Cawdor. His traitorous actions would have been met with death at that time. God's divine order is disturbed as Macbeth challenges God by killing the God appointed King and assuming the role for himself in his quest for power. Later on, in the play, Macbeth asserts his right over Lady Macbeth, flipping their dynamic, and distances himself from her, "be innocent of the knowledge dearest chuck.

Through Lady Macbeth’s change from ruthless and masculin to insane, Shakespeare illustrates the impact of murder. Shakespeare portrays Lady Macbeth as masculine, and ruthless in order to illustrate unmerciful cruelty. Just after Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth about his encounter with the three witches, Lady Macbeth prayed to be stripped of any emotions. She prayed to be unsexed which doing so she would have no grieve, guilt, or regret towards killing King Duncan.

Lady Macbeth is influenced by Macbeth as she receives a letter from him discussing the predictions of the weird sisters. Demonstrating the possibility of becoming Macbeth evokes the desire of power within Lady Macbeth. However, Lady Macbeth is not strongly influenced by Macbeth but, her own ambition pushes her to devise horrific plans such as framing the chamberlains. Lady Macbeth instead influences Macbeth as she judges his manhood and triggers the evolution in his character. In contrast, the creature receives hate from mankind and is taught to hate humans back as they judge him by his appearance as they attack or run away from him.

In Shakespeare 's Macbeth, Malcolm describes Lady Macbeth as a “fiend-like Queen” The definition of fiend is someone who has an evil spirit, a person who is a cruel, brutal or spiteful person and is extremely wicked. Shakespeare presents elements of wicked deception in Lady Macbeth’s character throughout the play through her choice of form and language which is used to mask the evil of the deed she is convincing him to do, an example of this is in Act 1 Scene 5 when she chooses to use the word ‘dispatch’ over ‘murder’ to desensitize the horror of the killing. This is an effective choice of language from Lady Macbeth as it tricks Macbeth into believing the death of King Duncan was inevitable as it had already been prophecised so therefore he wasn’t committing treason, murder or disrupting the natural order which was believed to have been decided by God at the time by society.

She insults him and calls him a coward while also questioning his manhood which makes Macbeth come to a realization that not killing the king is the way of a coward and he is motivated to carry out the plan and murder the king because of Lady Macbeth’s insults and speech that she gives him. By successfully persuading Macbeth into murdering the king this shows that Lady Macbeth is controlling towards people and she can be a very manipulative person. It shows that she is the type of person that gets things done by manipulating other people to do her dirty work for her. Lady Macbeth can simply achieve her own goals by getting into anyone’s head and turning their own conscience against them in, which is essentially what she did to her husband. Macbeth would have never went through with killing King Duncan if Lady Macbeth had never persuaded him because he really does have a soft heart and is good and honorable.

This shows Lady Macbeth going through lengths just to become royalty and this shows she is ruthless because she is only thinking about herself. Besides, the idea of dashing out the brains of a child deliberately shows Lady Macbeth is willing to killing her own blood, which is cold because usually mothers have a stronger and more intimate bond with their babies. Therefore, Lady Macbeth is shown as a ruthless person, who is very controlling, however there is a shift in her character at the end of the play, she becomes weaker. In the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth manipulated Macbeth into doing things he didn’t want to do, by targeting is insecurities (his masculinity). But, now her persuasion no longer works on Macbeth, for example at banquet Macbeth was acting crazy and Lady Macbeth challenging his manhood by asking him if he were a man.

Well Lady Macbeth, who is dead set on having absolute power, disagrees with that. She convinces Macbeth to kill, to cover up the murders, and tries to convince him that these murders will get them to the top. Lady Macbeth calls upon the witches and states, “unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty” (Macbeth Act 1 Scene 5 lines 31 and 31). This shows that while in the pursuit of power, Lady Macbeth wanted it so much that she asked the witches to “unsex” her and make her more like man. But along with that you see the theme of gender roles are uncertain which ties into Lady Macbeth leading Macbeth in this pursuit of power, also giving him the ambition that she wants him to

Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s wife, for better or for worse had stuck by Macbeth. That being said she shares a much of the responsibility of Macbeth’s fall from grace. She pretty much is a catalyst to Macbeth’s actions, she pushed him to do things that he wouldn’t have. She pushes Macbeth to murder King Duncan by challenging Macbeth’s manhood; she also uses disturbing images of their unborn child to push Macbeth. “And dash'd the brains out” such a disturbing image that shakes Macbeth.

They tell Macbeth his future, which causes him to carry on so he could be the king. This creates tragedy and distress throughout the play. The three sisters discover entertainment in deceiving individuals into evil. “By the pricking of thumbs, something wicked this way comes”(4.1.44-45).The Weird Sister worship devastating the lives of numerous individuals. They worship all the evil they bring through telling what's to come.

or I will not love you. This is manipulative because she is cornering her husband, so he will have no option but to carry on with Duncan’s murder. Another example is when Lady Macbeth pulls

This tactic works for her as she get Macbeth to go through with the killing of King Duncan. There are times where Macbeth is very hesitant in killing the king and but she uses her emasculating tactics to make him feel that he has to go through with the murder to feel more masculine and prove himself of his manhood . One example of how she uses this tactic is by questioning his manhood. Although cruel, this tactic works and makes her husband murder King Duncan.

This is done by condemning her husband’s biggest insecurity; his manhood. She states that Macbeth would be “So much more the man.” (Shakespeare, trans. 2012, 1.7.58 if he were to follow through with the plan. Lady Macbeth even points out that she herself would kill her own baby as a means to reach her goals.

Possibly one of the most influential characters of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth takes the definition of female dominance to an entirely new level with her ability to manipulate, yet love her husband, and her ability to accuse, yet reassure him of his actions. Though Lady Macbeth is not well described anterior to her introduction, it is immediately apparent that she holds her dominance using her cunning skills, fuelled by ambition, which makes her one of the cruellest characters in Macbeth. Her portrayal of cunningness, upon Duncan’s arrival to Macbeth’s castle, is shown when she allows the king to “Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt, / To make their audit at [his] pleasure” (1.6.31–32), in order to give him a false sense of security, when in reality, she wants to ensure that “[her] keen knife see not the wound it makes” (1.5.55) on Duncan. As a result, Lady Macbeth is able to let the king into their castle without hesitation, just like a serpent underneath an innocent flower. While her cunningness is a character trait to fear, it is what fuels it that gives Lady Macbeth her power; ambition.

Lady Macbeth's intent is to persuade her husband to kill King Duncan. She is ultimately successful in doing so because she breaks down Macbeth's fear with various rebuttals to his argument and draws out his ambition to be great. In her eyes, it was his idea in the first place and he would not have brought this to her had it not truly been weighing on his heart. She also thinks about the effects of him being king. For instance, Macbeth as King would make her queen.