Lady Macbeth
Extended Character Analysis
Lady Macbeth is Macbeth’s wife and “dearest partner of greatness.” At the start of the play, she is the more dominant figure in the marriage, viewing her husband as weak and lacking the necessary willpower to achieve their mutual ambitions. Upon receiving Macbeth’s letter about the witches’ prophecies, Lady Macbeth is thrilled by the prospect of becoming queen. She calls out to the “spirits” to “unsex” her and turn her “womanly” attributes into more masculine ones so that she might become “cruel” enough to murder King Duncan herself. However, after Duncan’s death, both Lady Macbeth’s sanity and power in her marriage begin to decline. By the start of act V, she is sleepwalking and hallucinating about having blood on her hands, with the court doctor's proclaiming that she would be better off with a priest than a physician. She ultimately takes her own life, and Macbeth laments that she died at a time when he is unable to mourn her properly.
Lady Macbeth is at odds with her gender. She frequently emasculates her husband as a means of manipulating him and seems to despise all things feminine, perceiving femininity as a weakness. In act I, scene V, Lady Macbeth rejects everything to do with femininity and motherhood, calling on the spirits to “unsex” her, replace her breast milk with poison, and thicken her blood so that she can no longer menstruate. In act I, scene VII, she describes a brutal infanticide, saying that she would gladly dash “the brains out” of her own child if it meant keeping an oath.
In the context of gender roles in Jacobean England, Lady Macbeth would have been considered an unconventional, even unnatural, woman for rejecting maternal compassion in favor of masculine violence and ambition. Her power over her husband and her role in his regicide align her with the witches, who are also described as unnatural and androgynous. Combined with her summoning of “spirits” to help her accomplish her goals, Lady Macbeth is sometimes considered a fourth witch.
By reading Lady Macbeth as a fourth witch, her villainy is cemented and she becomes a corrupting influence. Just as the three “weird sisters” spur Macbeth towards his downfall, Lady Macbeth bullies her husband into the murder, alternatingly stoking his ambition and goading him by insulting his masculinity. In this interpretation, Lady Macbeth is the true villain of the play, spurring her otherwise good husband to commit terrible evils. Even without the more supernatural elements, Lady Macbeth is often cast as a corrupting force whose ambition—unnatural and unfeminine by Jacobean standards—leads to her husband’s downfall.
However, by a different reading, Lady Macbeth is a woman whose dissatisfaction with her expected gender role has resulted in a loathing of all things feminine. Lady Macbeth is as ambitious, cunning, and cutthroat as her husband, if not more so, but she has no outlet for her feelings and energies. She cannot don armor and ride into battle, currying favor with the king. Instead, she must stay at home and live vicariously through Macbeth. The witches’ prophecy represents an opportunity for her to satisfy her own needs and participate in the action. Her enthusiasm at the prospect of killing Duncan by her own hand suggests a desire for power and control over men that she has previously only been able to exercise within her marriage.
Lady Macbeth’s madness—and the question of where it stems from—is also open to interpretation. During her sleepwalking episode in act V, scene I, Lady Macbeth makes several statements that suggest possible causes. The first of these is guilt over her involvement in Duncan’s murder. She hallucinates that her hand is covered with blood; that she is unable to wash away the stain no matter how hard she scrubs. By this reading, Lady Macbeth is driven mad by remorse for her actions and possibly remorse for her husband’s subsequent actions.
However, by a different reading, it is not until Macbeth orders the deaths of Lady Macduff and her children that Lady Macbeth truly goes mad. Though still brought on by guilt, her madness is now based in her lack of control over events. During Duncan’s murder, Lady Macbeth was in control of the plan and had to support her husband. However, after the murders are completed, Macbeth begins acting on his own, first by ordering the deaths of Banquo and Fleance and then by massacring Macduff’s family.
On a more thematic level, Lady Macbeth’s madness can be read as a restoration of the natural order. Just as Macbeth must die so that Malcolm can ascend to the throne, Lady Macbeth must also die, but not before she is forced back into a more traditionally feminine role. Using this interpretation, Lady Macbeth’s madness is a punishment for her transgressive ambition. Forced to relive the night of the murder instead of sleeping, she grows enfeebled, referring to her hand as “little” and needing to be taken care of. As opposed to her dominant, masculine presence in the first three acts, her madness renders her weak and hysterical, characteristics that Lady Macbeth initially derided her “unmanly” husband for exhibiting.
Expert Q&A
What does Lady Macbeth's statement, "My hands are of your color, but I shame to wear a heart so white," mean?
3 Educator Answers
Quick answer:
Lady Macbeth is saying that her hands are just as bloody as her husband's (acknowledging her own role in Duncan's murder), yet she does not feel the same guilt or anxiety that Macbeth does. In other words, she is shaming Macbeth for his cowardice after the murder.
After Macbeth returns from Duncan's chamber covered in blood, he is visibly shaken and emotionally disturbed. Macbeth instantly regrets committing regicide and experiences extreme guilt for his actions. In contrast, Lady Macbeth remains composed and is upset that her husband is behaving like a frightened, sensitive woman.
Lady Macbeth criticizes her husband for refusing to reenter Duncan's chamber and is forced to place the daggers near the sleeping guards herself. When Lady Macbeth returns from Duncan's chamber, Macbeth once again laments his actions by saying, "Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?" (Shakespeare, 2.2.60). Unlike her guilt-ridden husband, Lady Macbeth boldly accepts responsibility for Duncan's death and shows no remorse by saying,
My hands are of your color, but I shame
To wear a heart so white.
In this quote, Lady Macbeth is acknowledging that her hands are also (metaphorically) covered with Duncan's blood, signifying her own responsibility for this terrible crime. In the second half of the quote, Lady Macbeth is ridiculing her husband for acting sensitive and regretting his actions. By saying that she "shame to wear a heart so white," Lady Macbeth is saying that she would be embarrassed to have a pale, weak heart. While the color red is associated with guilt and crime, the color white represents purity and innocence. At this point in the play, Lady Macbeth has already asked evil spirits to fill her soul with cruelty and remains callous following the murder. Her comment is yet another shot at Macbeth's masculinity as she attempts to motivate him to remain calm and carry out their plan.
Since Shakespeare chose not to show King Duncan being murdered in his bed, he wanted to emphasize the reality and horror of the deed by showing both Macbeth and his wife with bloody hands. The purpose of all the looking at hands, showing of hands, and talking about hands is to call the attention of the audience to all the blood. First Macbeth says:
What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes!
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Then his wife replies directly to this statement:
My hands are of your color, but I shame
To wear a heart so white.
They are both making a display of their bloody hands in order to produce a strong emotional effect on the audience. Their hands are, in effect, proof of the commission of a terribly bloody murder as well as a proof of their guilty partnership.
When Lady Macbeth says, "...but I shame / To wear a heart so white," she means, "I would be ashamed to wear a heart so white," i.e., I would be ashamed to be such a coward. She is telling her husband to stop bemoaning the crime he has committed. She is continually manipulating him by questioning his courage and manhood. She knows that this is only the beginning. They will have to keep their nerve in the morning when the King's body is discovered and there is pandemonium throughout the castle.
It seems that both husband and wife are "suiting the action to the word," as Hamlet (speaking for Shakespeare) tells the actors in that play. Macbeth and his wife not only display their bloody hands but get more blood on themselves while speaking the above-quoted lines. Macbeth probably would drag his fingers across his brow and eyes as he said, "What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes." The audience would not know for a few moments whether Macbeth had actually, like Oedipus, actually torn his eyes out. His fingers would leave trails of blood all the way down his cheeks. Then when Lady Macbeth countered that she would "shame to wear a heart so white," she would wipe one hand across her white gown with the word "shame" and the other hand across the other side of the gown with the word "white."
Shakespeare must have wanted to use lots of blood in this scene to represent the terrible murder and to make up for the fact that he did not actually show the it being committed. He may have considered inserting a scene in which Macbeth stole into the King's bedchamber and stabbed the old man to death, but such a scene would obviously be hard to enact. And there would be no opportunity for Shakespeare's poetic dialogue. It would be a sort of dumb show and not emotionally effective like the scene in which Macbeth and his wife are smearing themselves with the King's blood. Both Macbeth and his wife are elsewhere given plenty of lines in which to describe what went on inside the King's bedchamber. For example:
MACBETH:
There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried,
“Murder!”
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:
But they did say their prayers and address'd them
Again to sleep.
What is the significance of the quote from Macbeth: "My hands are of your color?"
Macbeth has just committed the murder of Duncan, and it has upset him so much that he has carried the murder weapons out of the room rather than placing them on the chamberlains that he and Lady Macbeth intend to frame for the crime. When she tells him to return the daggers, he refuses, saying,
I'll go no more.
I am afraid to think what I have done.
Look on 't again I dare not (2.2.65–67).
He admits to his fear; he does not even want to think about the terrible thing he has done. As a result, his wife feels that he is being a coward. When she says that it is "the eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil," she insults her husband and compares him to a child, someone who is afraid of things that aren't really dangerous at all (2.2.70–71). He feels so guilty, however, that he feels that the blood on his hands will make the
[. . .] multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red (2.2.80–81).
He refers to the color of the blood on his hands. When Lady Macbeth returns, having taking the daggers back, she says,
My hands are of your color, but I shame
To wear a heart so white (2.2.82–83).
In other words, her hands are now as red and bloody as Macbeth's—she touched the daggers and smeared the grooms with Duncan's blood—but she says that she would be ashamed if her heart were as "white" as her husband's; she insults him again, referring to his cowardice.
It is always interesting to me that Lady Macbeth could not commit the actual murder herself; early in the scene, when she is alone on stage, she says of Duncan,
Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't (2.2.16–17).
Lady Macbeth, then, did not have the wherewithal or fortitude to commit the murder on her own, but she is quite willing to berate and chastise her husband, who did do the terrible thing, for his unwillingness to return to the scene of the crime. This is pretty ironic, isn't it? If she's so strong and brave, then why couldn't she kill Duncan? Her selective bravery and bravado seems to indicate that her strength could falter later, and it does.
What are two quotes that show Lady Macbeth manipulating Macbeth in Macbeth?
5 Educator Answers
Quick answer:
Two quotes that show Lady Macbeth manipulating Macbeth in Macbeth are the passages in act 1, scene 6, where she asks him, "Was the hope drunk / Wherein you dress'd yourself?" and where she states, "When you durst do it, then you were a man."
We see Lady Macbeth's absolute willingness to manipulate Macbeth even before he returns to their home. After she receives his letter, in which he acquaints her with his interaction with the Weird Sisters and his subsequent reward with the title Thane of Cawdor, she laments that he is only mildly ambitious and lacks the "illness" that would compel him to "catch the nearest way" to the throne (i.e., killing the current king). She wishes him home so that she can begin her manipulation of him to this end:
Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round (1.5.28–31)
In expressing her desire to pour her spirits into his ear, she makes it clear that she intends to persuade and cajole him—to do whatever is necessary to get him to do her bidding.
When he does arrive home, she immediately begins to issue instructions to him on how he should look and behave when the king arrives. She says,
To beguile the time,
Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue. Look like th' innocent
flower,
But be the serpent under 't (1.5.74–78).
She is certainly pouring her spirits into his ear now! She even says that he "shall put / This night's great business into [her] dispatch," implying that she intends to handle all the plans for the murder and that she doesn't want Macbeth involved at all in that part of things (1.5.79–80). When Macbeth expresses his desire to speak further about the matter, she does not relent. Instead, she dismisses his request and says, "Leave all the rest to me" (1.5.86). She tells him what to do, what not to do, what part of the plan she wants him to be involved with, and what parts he should keep out of. She rather masterfully manipulates him prior to the murder of the king.
In Shakespeare's classic play Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is portrayed as an ambitious, calculating woman, who manipulates her husband to follow through with King Duncan's assassination by questioning his masculinity and assuring him that they will not fail in their wicked endeavor. In act 1, scene 7, Macbeth rehearses to himself all the arguments against killing Duncan and concludes that he will not murder the king. When Lady Macbeth enters the scene, Macbeth tells her, "We will proceed no further in this business" (Shakespeare, 1.7.33). Lady Macbeth is outraged by his immediate change of character and proceeds to insult his masculinity and degrade him for being timid. Lady Macbeth asks,
Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”
Like the poor cat i' th' adage? (1.7.39–45)
Lady Macbeth is asking her husband if he is afraid to act upon his ambition and calls him a coward for hesitating to take what he desires most in life. She is manipulating him by challenging his masculinity. During the eleventh century, esteemed men were expected to be callous, resolute, and aggressive, which is the complete opposite of how Macbeth is currently acting. In an attempt to justify his decision and respond to his wife's insults, Macbeth says that any man who dares to do more than he should is not a man at all. Lady Macbeth once again displays her manipulative techniques by saying,
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 (1.7.49–52).
Lady Macbeth continues to question her husband's masculinity and shame him into committing the bloody crime. After ridiculing her husband and making him feel like a timid coward, Lady Macbeth assures him that their plan will be successful by saying,
We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we’ll not fail (1.7.60–62).
Macbeth succumbs to his wife's manipulation and agrees to carry out the assassination, which leads to his tragic downfall.
What quotes show Lady Macbeth manipulating Macbeth?
Act 1, scene 5 of Shakespeare's Macbeth opens with the first appearance of Lady Macbeth. She enters the scene reading a letter from Macbeth telling her about his encounter with the witches and their prophecies to him.
Within just a few lines, Lady Macbeth indicates that she intends to manipulate Macbeth into making that prophecy come true.
LADY MACBETH. Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round.
When Macbeth appears in the scene, he tells Lady Macbeth that King Duncan is coming to stay at their castle, and Lady Macbeth decides that they should murder him.
MACBETH. My dearest love,
Duncan comes here tonight.LADY MACBETH. And when goes hence?
MACBETH. Tomorrow, as he purposes.
LADY MACBETH. O, never
Shall sun that morrow see!
Lady Macbeth notices some hesitation from Macbeth about killing Duncan. She immediately takes charge of the situation and starts telling Macbeth how to behave towards Duncan when he arrives and says one of her most famous lines:
Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't.
Lady Macbeth doesn't trust Macbeth to do what she wants him to do, so she tells him, twice, that she's going to take charge of the situation herself.
LADY MACBETH. [A]nd you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch.Leave all the rest to me.
After Duncan arrives at Macbeth's castle, Macbeth has serious second thoughts about killing him, and he tells Lady Macbeth, "We will proceed no further in this business" (act 1, scene 7, line 34).
This is not what Lady Macbeth wants to hear. In her next speech, she berates Macbeth for changing his mind, accuses him of betraying her, says that he doesn't love her, calls him an indecisive coward, and says that he wants everything handed to him without doing anything to deserve it. Macbeth protests:
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
He means that he's done everything honorable to advance himself and that to do otherwise would be dishonorable.
Lady Macbeth takes his words literally. She calls him a "beast" who's broken his word to her, and she attacks his manhood, saying that a real man would do whatever is necessary to become king.
LADY MACBETH. 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.
She further emasculates and denigrates Macbeth by saying that she would kill her own baby rather than break a promise to Macbeth like the one that he made to her.
By the end of the scene, Lady Macbeth has convinced Macbeth to kill Duncan—or she's simply browbeaten him into submission—and Macbeth ends the scene by saying to Lady Macbeth something that she might say to him.
MACBETH. I am settled, and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
What quotes show Lady Macbeth manipulating Macbeth?
There are numerous statements from Lady Macbeth that show she is
manipulating her husband, and indeed, doing so consciously. When she reads the
letter from him in Act I, Scene V, as soon as she stops reading, she says the
following:
" Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness(15)
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great;"
She judges him too kind, and so, a few lines later, says " That I may pour
my spirits in thine ear,"
In other words, she explicitly plans to manipulate him into grasping his
fate.
Not much later (in Act I, Scene VII), she teases him when he hesitates,
saying " Wouldst thou have that(45)
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would”
Like the poor cat i’ the adage?"
What quotes in Macbeth show Lady Macbeth's ambition for power?
In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Lady Macbeth has a great deal to say, especially to her husband, about wresting power (and the throne) from Duncan, and holding on to it...at least at the beginning.
Act One is a good place to start, with scene five. First Lady Macbeth receives news in her husband's letter which reports all that has transpired, especially his "promotions" and the witches' prophecies.
Lady Macbeth is quick to understand what possibilities may be open to them if Macbeth is going to be king, but realizes that Macbeth may not have a dark enough "soul" to carry out the deed: killing Duncan— ("...All that impedes thee from the golden round [crown]...").
Her intent is clear:
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...Hie thee hither, / That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, / And chastise with the valor of my tongue / All that impedes thee from the golden round..." (lines 11-14, 20-23)
Lady Macbeth wishes her husband home quickly so that she may work on him, poison his thoughts, so that he will be strong enough to seize this opportunity to be the King of Scotland.
When Lady Macbeth learns of Duncan's impending arrival at their castle, she calls on dark spirits to make her less soft and womanly, and harder, like a man, in order to carry out what she must, to see the murder done:
Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull / Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; / Stop up the access and passage to remorse, / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose, or keep peace between the effect and it! Come to my woman's breats, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers...Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, / That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, / Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, / To cry "Hold, hold! (lines 35-43, 45-49)
Lady Macbeth gives Macbeth pointers as to how to hide his intent:
Your face, my thane, is a book where men / May read strange matters...bear welcome in your eye, / Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under 't. (lines 57-61)
In scene seven, Macbeth begins to have misgivings. Lady Macbeth insults his manhood and his bravery, telling him what she would be willing to do in order to achieve their ends:
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 plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, / And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done this. (lines 54-59)
All of these quotations demonstrate not only the depth of Lady Macbeth's ambition, but also how far she is willing to go to guarantee her husband's success: if he is able to reach their goal, they will both reap the rewards.
Lady Macbeth as the Fourth Witch in Macbeth
11 Educator Answers
Summary:
Lady Macbeth is often considered the "fourth witch" in Macbeth due to her manipulative and ambitious nature. She exhibits traits similar to the witches, such as a desire for power and a willingness to use dark means to achieve her goals. Her influence over Macbeth and her involvement in the plot to murder King Duncan align her with the supernatural elements of the play.
Can Lady Macbeth be considered the fourth witch in Macbeth?
We may, but we don't have to. The concept of Lady Macbeth as a "fourth witch" is one of the standard interpretations of the character, and has been since the play was first written. Not that we must view her in this way, it's just one of the regular critical views. The three witches call forth desires and ambitions from Macbeth that are essentially "bad"- a desire for power at all costs, primarily. Lady Macbeth causes these desires to take actual form in the "real world" of the play, thus giving physical form to the concepts introduced by the witches. She exhibits a ruthlessness, intelligence and determination which to the audience of the time would have been seen as unnatural.
On the other hand, as noted above her mind becomes unhinged by guilt, so she is not a completely evel character. She certainly is not in any specific manner like the three witches.
This entire question is indicative of the play as a whole- the most ambiguous of Shakespeare's works in both action and morality. Ever since it was written (probably 1606), critics and theatre people have consistently expressed dissatisfaction with the abruptness of the ending, the ambiguity of "villians" like Macbeth and his wife who are not totally evil by any means, and the equal ambiguity of "heroes" like Malcolm and Macduff who are far from shining characters. All of the female characters are exagerated and unnatural: the witches are unsettling and sexless; Lady Macbeth is obviously loving toward her husband but ruthlessly merciless; Macduff's wife is so perfect as to be unbelievable.
One of the reasons for all of this is probably the circumstances of the writing. Queen Elizabeth I had recently died and named James Stuart of Scotland as her sucessor. The characters of Duncan, Macbeth, Banquo, etc. were all based on historic personages, one of whom (Banquo) was a direct ancestor of King James, who had just taken on the sponsorship of the Globe. To many Scots, Macbeth was a hero and Macduff and Malcolm considered traitors who delivered Scotland into the hands of the English monarchy. Shakespeare, as an Englishman and a subject of James, would have obviously wanted to present this story in a manner acceptable to his audience and new patron.
Can Lady Macbeth be considered the fourth witch in Macbeth?
I would not. Instead, think of her as yet another very influential female in Macbeth's life...even though Macbeth isn't completely sure the witches are female (he comments on their beards), he is intrigued and influenced by their actions in the play. By the same token, he is influenced by his wife's words and actions up until the point he begins acting alone to secure his throne by hiring murders to take care of the threat of Banquo and Fleance.
Can Lady Macbeth be considered the fourth witch in Macbeth?
While the witches actually perform witchcraft, Lady Macbeth never takes the plunge and becomes a witch. Even Macbeth is more witch-like with his willingness to participate in dark rituals involving a bubbling cauldron!
I don't think the witches are minor characters or unimportant to the story. However, they are quite different from Lady Macbeth, who is definitely evil, but who doesn't sink to the depths of depravity that Macbeth does.
A great book is available that goes into this very subject in great detail - Witches and Jesuits - check the link for a great review of the book by Jamie Wheeler!
http://www.enotes.com/blogs/book-blog/2008-07/witches-and-jesuits
Can Lady Macbeth be considered the fourth witch in Macbeth?
This is a good question for the discussion board.
I would not think of Lady Macbeth as the fourth witch. The role of the witches is to plant in Macbeth's mind the idea that he might someday be king. Lady Macbeth takes that idea and immediately starts to work planning how to make it happen. Without her influence, he might never have killed Duncan or committed any of the other offences in the play. Rather than placing her among the witches, you might say that she represents Macbeth's ambition.
Can Lady Macbeth be considered the fourth witch in Macbeth?
I wouldn't advise it. The witches are an extremely enigmatic force in the play: they can certainly see into the future, and they seem to have evil intent (have a look at their revenge on the sailor's wife and their murder of the pilot as they report it in Act 1, Scene 3). Are they human? Are they spirits or ghosts? Do they just exist in Macbeth's head? You could read the evidence in the play to answer any of these questions 'yes' or 'no'.
Lady Macbeth is quite a different prospect. She's a real woman, married to Macbeth, who seems to have recently had a baby or a child die (she claims to have 'given suck', and she says that there is milk in her breasts - and yet Macduff says that Macbeth 'has no children'). And she has no evil powers at the start of the play: in fact, so nervous is she that she won't be strong enough to persuade Macbeth to kill Duncan that she has to ask the evil spirits to fill her up with cruelty:
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!
A woman who needs evil assistance in order to be cruel surely can't be a witch. And remember, Lady M. works by persuasion, where the witches work by prophecy. There's a big difference.
Why is Lady Macbeth considered the fourth witch?
I would not say she is a witch at all. Hecate is the leader of the witches; if anyone is a fourth witch, it is him.
Yes, both the witches and Lady Macbeth plant seeds in Macbeth's murder of Duncan: the witches give Macbeth the idea ("King"), while Lady Macbeth gives him the plan ("murder"), but any other connection after this is tangential or nebulous. The witches and Lady Macbeth inhabit two completely different worlds.
Lady Macbeth is clearly a natural or unnatural (but not a supernatural) creature who tries to employ masculine (not supernatural) means to corrupt Macbeth. She succeeds in convincing him; then, she and her husband suffer physical and psychological problems as a result. Her suicide reveals her mortality.
Lady Macbeth is clearly feminine: one might even say a victim of sexism in Elizabethan society. The witches, on the other hand, have beards. So says Enotes:
Analysts see in the character of Lady Macbeth the conflict between feminine and masculine, as they are impressed in cultural norms. Lady Macbeth suppresses her instincts toward compassion, motherhood, and fragility — associated with femininity — in favor of ambition, ruthlessness, and a lust for power. This conflict colors the entire drama, and sheds light on gender-based preconceptions from Shakespearean England to the present.
The witches have no such lust for power: they are disenfranchised and resort to petty revenge and tricks to satisfy themselves. They make no efforts to rise up the ladder of the Great Chain of Being, unlike Lady Macbeth.
In terms of status, Lady Macbeth is higher on the Great Chain of Being that the witches, who are more or less beggars.
Why is Lady Macbeth considered the fourth witch?
The reason that some people see her this way is because they think she plays a role similar to the three "real" witches. By this, I mean that she makes Macbeth more interested in taking power just like the three witches do. Like them, she helps bring out Macbeth's bad desires and ambitions.
The witches do this by their prophecies. Lady Macbeth does this by encouraging her husband to act on the prophecies -- she pushes him when he seems reluctant. You can see this, for example, when she first hears of the prophecies. She immediately wants Macbeth to be more ruthless in pursuing power.
Is Lady Macbeth a fourth witch in Macbeth?
Although Lady Macbeth is not an actual witch in the play, her ability to manipulate Macbeth's actions are very similar to the influence the witches' prophecy has on him in the first act. By attacking his manhood and questioning Macbeth's love for her, Lady Macbeth possibly does more damage to Macbeth than the three witches combined. They are fully aware of the destruction they are causing to his life, but his wife truly believes she is helping improve their place in Scotland society by killing Duncan and taking the throne. Unlike the witches, Lady Macbeth also pays the price for her part in the murderous scheme, causing her to appear much more human than supernatural.
Is Lady Macbeth the fourth and worst witch in Macbeth's tragic end?
I like your interpretation of Lady Macbeth as the fourth witch, or at least a co-conspirator of the whole process of instigating Macbeth to kill the King. Lady Macbeth plays a crucial role in convincing her husband that he must seize the opportunity put before him by both the prophecy and the King's visit to his home.
Macbeth, although consumed with a desire for power, actually decides not to kill the King.
"We will proceed no further in this business: He hath honor'd me of late, and I have bought35) Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon."
He tells his wife that the plot is over, let it go. She persists.
"Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that(45) Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would”
Like the poor cat i’ the adage?"
She tells him that he is less than a man if he is too much of a coward to kill the King.
So Lady Macbeth does use her powers of persuasion to convince her husband that he must kill the king, if he loves her he would kill the king, seize the throne and make her have her heart's desire, to be queen.
When you add up the prophecy which stirs Macbeth's deepest desire for power and recognition and add in Lady Macbeth's convincing argument, he has been preyed upon by four witches. He is manipulated by two different types of magic, one that is designed to bring out his desire for power and greed and envy, the dark passions. And the other, stirred by his wife who assaults his ego, virility and capacity as a man and a husband to persuade him to commit murder, which she sees as opportunity, not as evil.
Lady Macbeth leads her husband the rest of the way to the dark side. She has her limits too though, after the murdering gets out of control and Lady Macduff and her family are killed by Macbeth's thugs, she finds her conscience.
Is Lady Macbeth the fourth and worst witch in Macbeth's tragic end?
"Right" is not exactly the term I would use. She may certainly be viewed as an extension of the witches, or as a symbolic fourth witch, because of her mental strength, power over her husband, and ruthlessness. She calls forth from Macbeth the same desires that the witches called forth, ambition, lust for power, etc. In some respects, Lady Macbeth and her husband are a metaphor for the story of Adam and Eve, the woman persuading her mate to commit sin. But Lady Macbeth is not the culprit or perpetrator of the crime, not the originator of sin any more than Eve, nor any more than the witches themselves.
Macbeth's acting on the forbidden desire is, in this play, what constitutes being a man- and Lady Macbeth calls this forth by daring him to stop being a child. But when he does, she loses her power over him. This is a strangely misogynistic play, where the women are all somewhat unnatural creatures except for Macduff's wife, who is the paragon of the good woman. The women are all removed by the end of the play, leaving only a world of heroic warrior men.
Macbeth and his wife exhibit, for all their negative qualities, an intimacy and care for one another (and understanding of each other) far beyond the normal married pair in Shakespeare's works. But Lady Macbeth's strong will, quick mind and initial power over her husband most likely was interpreted by the contemporary audience as somewhat supernatural.
What purpose does it serve to characterize Lady Macbeth as a fourth witch in Macbeth?
I think that an attempt to "prove" that Lady Macbeth is a fourth witch in Macbeth would involve a misinterpretation of both the play and the role of the supernatural in culture and literature. First, Lady Macbeth does not have similar character traits when compared to the witches--the witches are simply harbingers of fate and they do not direct Macbeth to act one way or another. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, does influence her husband to act, and she largely persuades Macbeth to murder King Duncan. Next, the number three is symbolic when looking at elements of fate and destiny, and this would be broken by adding a fourth. Finally, Lady Macbeth is round character in the play as she goes from being quite greedy and driven to being remorseful when she realizes that many people have died at Macbeth's hand. The witches remain constant throughout the play.
The meaning and underlying implications of Lady Macbeth's quote "unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty."
4 Educator Answers
Summary:
In this quote, Lady Macbeth is asking to be stripped of her feminine qualities and filled with cruelty to commit regicide. This implies a rejection of traditional gender roles, showcasing her desire for power and ruthless ambition, which she believes requires abandoning her womanly nature.
What is the meaning of Lady Macbeth's quote in Act 1, Scene 5 of Macbeth?
"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! Make thick my blood"
In act 1, scene 5, Lady Macbeth receives news of Macbeth's favorable prophecy and learns that King Duncan is on his way to their castle. Upon reading her husband's letter, Lady Macbeth is consumed with ambition but wonders if Macbeth lacks the resolve and determination needed to assassinate the king. Once her servant brings word of the king's imminent arrival and leaves, Lady Macbeth reveals her malevolent desire to become queen in her passionate soliloquy:
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. Make thick my blood. Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! (Shakespeare, 1.5.30-37)
Essentially, Lady Macbeth is instructing evil spirits from hell to consume her soul and transform her into a callous being, who lacks the conscience of a man or woman. She desires to become a malevolent, hostile individual without remorse in order to completely focus on her evil purpose. Lady Macbeth also requests for "murd'ring ministers" to transform her mother’s milk into poisonous acid, which emphasizes her motivation to shed her gentle female qualities in favor of cruel, hostile traits. She then instructs the thick night to conceal her evil deeds by covering the world in darkness so that her "keen knife see not the wound it makes."
Overall, Lady Macbeth's passionate soliloquy emphasizes her ambitious nature and reveals the extent she is willing to go to become queen. Lady Macbeth's speech also characterizes her as a malicious, calculating woman, who is determined to convince Macbeth to assassinate King Duncan.
What is the meaning of Lady Macbeth's quote in Act 1, Scene 5 of Macbeth?
"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! Make thick my blood"
This apostrophe by Lady Macbeth is by far the best scene in Act I. After she reads Macbeth's letter that prophesies of him becoming king, she walks upon her ramparts and speaks to the "spirits that tend on mortal thoughts" to completely remove her human qualities; this notion is revealed in the request to be "unsex[ed];" she wants to be neither a man nor woman, for both sexes have consciences, and she doesn't want one, for it will potentially inhibit her from her desire, which is to kill Duncan so that Macbeth can become king. The fact that she wants to be some kind of evil creature who does not have a conscience can be seen in her request that the spirits "make thick [her] blood. If her blood is thick, then she is dead, and if she is dead, she becomes some kind of spirit. The spirit that she desires to become is one that is filled with a "direst cruelty." This soliloquy reveals her nefarious ambition.
What is the meaning of Lady Macbeth's quote in Act 1, Scene 5 of Macbeth?
"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! Make thick my blood"
You have told us yourself where in the play this happens. At this point in the play, Macbeth has already heard the witches' prophecies about him. He has already been made Thane of Cawdor. But he is not yet king. The king, Duncan, is coming to visit Macbeth's castle.
In this quote, Lady Macbeth is wishing to be "unsexed" so that she could be more cruel and power hungry. This refers to the idea that women should not have these traits. But she thinks that her husband will not be ruthless enough to do what he needs to become king. So she wants to be ruthless enough to push him to kill Duncan.
What is the underlying meaning of Lady Macbeth's quote "unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty"?
Let's look at the context of this line. In act 1, scene 5, Lady Macbeth reads a letter from her husband, telling her of the events we witnessed in the previous scenes: Macbeth met three witches in the woods, and they hailed him as Thane of Glamis (which he is), Thane of Cawdor (which he becomes), and king hereafter (prophesying a future crown for him). As soon as she finishes reading, a messenger tells her that King Duncan will be coming to her castle tonight. The messenger leaves, and she speaks the following famous lines:
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. 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! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'
The raven croaking the "fatal entrance of Duncan" shows us what Lady Macbeth is scheming. She is ambitious, and wants her husband to become king as the witches foretold. She sees Duncan's visit as a fateful opportunity. In order to follow through with the assassination though, she will need to be tough. She asks the spirits to fill her with the "direst cruelty" so she will be cruel enough to commit the deadly act. By "crown" she means the crown or top of her head, although there is the additional imagery of a crown and overthrowing the king. This line also references gender roles. Women were seen as delicate, so she wants the spirits to "unsex" her so she can be more tough and manly. This thought is continued when she asks them to "come to my woman's breasts, and take my milk for gall." Basically, these lines are her desiring the power and strength that will be required in this conspiracy to kill the king.
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