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Is Lady Macbeth a fiend-like Queen? - page 2
Keywords: william shakespeare lady macbeth fiend-like queen drama
By exploiit on 19/06/2010
Level: GCSE Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11)
Page Number: 2 of 4 pages: 1 2 3 4desires are not of selfishness, and she instead intends to benefit her husband by any means. Her efforts are nevertheless presented as malicious and destructive, and Shakespeare tries to make apparent the unnecessary lengths to which Lady Macbeth will go in order to fulfill the witches’ predictions. Although her plan is ultimately supposed to benefit her husband, Lady Macbeth does not hesitate to methodically influence Macbeth by degrading and demoralizing his character. She attacks his masculinity in this sense, claiming that when he “durst do it, then you were a man”. We recognize the manipulative nature to this attack – Macbeth will obviously feel the need to assert his masculinity to his wife, and she is aware of this. In the short term, this aids Lady Macbeth’s plot, but will more permanently have a damaging effect on the couple. Macbeth feels it necessary to continue this thread of ‘masculine’ behaviour, and this results in an unintended crack in the relationship.
Another key moment in the play in which we see Lady Macbeth challenge her social role appears through monologue, where she asks to be rid of her femininity, “Unsex me here”. She is aware that the qualities given to her by nature would complicate her plans, and so requests to be free of these. Although she offers these traits to “murdering ministers”, a rather sinister act, we are meant to observe the selfless character of Lady Macbeth; for her husband, she is willing to forfeit her womanhood. The brutal language used by Lady Macbeth at this stage in the play is often considered suggestive of her role as a fiend; however I believe this language allows the fearful and innocent side of Lady Macbeth to surface. She remains determined to follow her arrangements through, but this does not take away from the fact that she is scared and does not want to commit to these deeds. She prays that her “keen knife see not the wound it makes”, suggesting that she cannot bear the horrific consequences of her actions.
When Macbeth is finally faced with murdering King Duncan, he begins to loose his nerve. He refuses to go through with the deed, and this decision is met with great opposition on Lady Macbeth’s behalf. She employs an antagonistic manner is order to once again manipulate her husband. She once more questions his authority by asking, “Art though afeard to be the same
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