Who is Lady Macbeth?
Macbeth's wife, Lady Macbeth is one of the most infamous characters in English Literature. Conniving, manipulative, and 'unsexed' from female vulnerability, Lady Macbeth is initially the more ambitious of the two. By Act 1 Scene 7, she successfully convinces Macbeth to murder King Duncan, if only to prove that he is a 'man'.
However, this supernatural strength does not last long. Behind the play's rising tensions between Macbeth and Macduff, Lady Macbeth slowly declines, overrun with guilt for her actions. Her final moments in the play are shrouded in paranoia, as she hallucinates Duncan's blood as a 'spot' on her hands before committing suicide off-stage.
Lady Macbeth's role in the play
As Macbeth's loyal wife, Lady Macbeth greatly subverts what was expected from Jacobean women. Her invocations to be 'unsexed', to 'stop up the access and passage to remorse', demonstrate a great level of power and authority which contrasts social expectations of docility, vulnerability, and weakness. That she would, to her own child, have 'plucked my nipple from his boneless gums / And dashed the brains out' evidences her distance from her womanly, maternal nature.
Shakespeare positions Lady Macbeth as the driving force in Macbeth's murder: her mocking rhetorical questions ('Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself?') diminish Macbeth's resolve and lead him to kill King Duncan. Her role after the murder, however, begins to dwindle. Macbeth keeps her out of Banquo's murder, and from there she begins to decline. Guilt replaces her once impenetrable stoicism, and by the final act she devolves into irreversible madness, confessing her crimes through her sleepwalking.
How Lady Macbeth changes
Lady Macbeth's character arc has two clear stages: she moves from being dominant and powerful to oppressed and guilt-ridden. Lady Macbeth is initially dismissive of guilt, believing that 'A little water clears us of this deed'. She relishes in her new-found power and deviance from female softness. However, that same guilt and weakness comes back to destroy her. By Act 5 she is sleepwalking, endlessly trying to clear an imagined spot of blood on her palm: 'Out, damned spot!'. She dies off-stage, implied to be suicide, and Macbeth barely reacts.
Tracking this arc in your answer shows an understanding of the entire play, something that examiners are always on the lookout for!
Key Lady Macbeth quotes
“Too full of the milk of human kindness”
Where: Act 1 Scene 5Lady Macbeth's famous soliloquy: a must-have in any essay! Here she questions Macbeth's ambitions, he certainly has the desires, yet Lady Macbeth believes he is too soft to go through with the regicide.
“Look like th' innocent flower, but be the serpent under't”
Where: Act 1 Scene 5Lady Macbeth advises Macbeth to appear harmless while secretly plotting Duncan's murder, highlighting her duplicitous and manipulative nature.
“When you durst do it, then you were a man.”
Where: Act 1 Scene 7Lady Macbeth's interrogations of Macbeth are essential to understanding not just her character, but Macbeth's also. Argue that this demonstrates their subverted power dynamics and Lady Macbeth's manipulative powers. She draws upon his insecurities of masculinity to spur him to success.
“A little water clears us of this deed.”
Where: Act 2 Scene 2Straight after Duncan's murder, Lady Macbeth dismisses guilt as something easily washed away. The dramatic irony is brutal: this exact image returns to destroy her, since by Act 5 she cannot clean the imagined blood at all. Pair it with 'all the perfumes of Arabia' to track her whole arc in two quotes.
“Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two.”
Where: Act 5 Scene 1Your key quote for her guilt-ridden end. Like Macbeth, her guilt manifests as hallucinations that plague her mind. The perfect way to end her arc, tying in the central motifs of blood and sleep.
Lady Macbeth and the play's themes
Being the most examined character, Lady Macbeth fits neatly into the play's central themes of ambition, guilt, and the supernatural.
Her ambition is best seen in Act 1 Scene 5, where she soliloquises about Macbeth's meeting of the Witches. Kingship, she knows, would bring with it esteem and honour, yet she fears that Macbeth is 'too full of the milk of human kindness' to go through with murder. Knowing that she must spur him onwards, she calls upon supernatural spirits to 'make thick' her blood, and to 'stop up the access and passage to remorse.' Where Macbeth lacks ruthless courage, Lady Macbeth excels.
Her eventual downfall can be framed either as a consequence of her supernatural soliciting or her guilt. Once dismissive of its power, guilt eventually catches up to Lady Macbeth, and her downfall culminates in her guilty realisation that: 'All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.'
She also feeds into the theme of appearance versus reality. She implores Macbeth to hide murder behind his nobility, 'Look like th' innocent flower, but be the serpent under't'.
Use the Macbeth themes page to see how she encompasses each theme, how they manifest, and how you can write the perfect essay for any theme.
Context: what Lady Macbeth represents
To a Jacobean society, Lady Macbeth would be feared and detested for many reasons. Firstly, because she is party to the murder of King Duncan, thereby going against the natural order set out by the Divine Right of Kings. Secondly, her soliciting with supernatural forces would have illustrated to audiences that she is unearthly and, in many ways, closely linked to the malicious Witches. And thirdly, as a woman, because of her deviance from traditional femininity (motherhood and 'softness').
In terms of historical context, I personally used very little for Lady Macbeth. My main points were centred upon the patriarchy and attitudes towards the supernatural. Even 1-2 sentences linking her actions in the play to how they would have been received demonstrates a high level of contextual understanding.
How to write about Lady Macbeth in the exam
Structure your response around Lady Macbeth's descent, focussing first on her rise to power, her manipulation of Macbeth, before moving to her downfall and eventual death. This shows examiners that you understand the whole play, not just isolated moments.
Where many students go wrong with Lady Macbeth is thinking that she wants to be a man. When Lady Macbeth wishes to be 'unsexed', she is not asking to be removed from womanhood, but rather from the expectations and qualities that surround it. Pair this with context surrounding the Jacobean patriarchy and you will demonstrate a high-level response that deviates from surface-level, inaccurate readings.
Explore how Lady Macbeth's character works with or against the others. Contrast her with Macbeth himself to see how the power balance in their relationship flips and changes. The two also share manifestations of guilt, although at different times and in different manifestations.
Map these similarities and differences onto the Macbeth themes page and secure her quotes with the key quotes page.