Nanami Tsuchiyama Rough Draft

Although Lady Macbeth seems to be quite aggressive towards power & nefarious, it is the destruction of her husband’s spirit that reveals the soft side beneath her steely exterior and leads to her demise.

In the beginning, especially in Act One, Lady Macbeth shows her evil qualities when persuading her husband in killing King Duncan in order for him to become king, or rather more for a selfish reason, for herself to become queen. In act one scene five, she has a soliloquy that goes, “The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortalo thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood, Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of natureo Shake my fello purpose, nor keep peace between Th’ effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall,o you murd’ring ministers,o
Wherever in your sightlesso substances You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
And pallo thee in the dunnesto 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!’” She is saying that she wishes evilness will take up her whole body, taking away the feminine away from her, and give the strength to commit this crime. She also says, “There is also Does unmake you. 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 down to this.” She is saying to Macbeth that she would do pluck his nippile from its mouth and take its brain out from a baby to show determination if she were asked to do it. We can see her depravity and also her strong greed for power.

However, as Macbeth starts falling apart, becoming hysterical and murderous, despite her selfish and evil characteristics that she has shown, her feminine, motherly side begins to show. In Act Three Scene Two, when Macbeth starts to plan to kill all the suspicious people that he had once loved, she says to him, “How now, my lord! Why do you keep alone, Of sorriest fancies your companions making, Using those thoughts which should indeed have died With them they think on? Things without all remedy Should be without regard. What’s done is done.”, “Come on, relax, dear. Put on a happy face and look cheerful and agreeable for your guests tonight.” Though some may say it is because she just wants to stay queen, I believe this her showing of love and caring towards Macbeth. She wants to tell him that they don't have to worry any further and that they’ll be okay. She is also very responsible as a wife who supports her husband. In Act Three Scene Four, when Macbeth sees ghosts and starts to make fool of himself in front of all the lords, she tries to protect themselves saying, “Sit down, worthy friends. My husband is often like this, and he has been since he was a child. Please stay seated. This is just a brief fit. In a moment he’ll be well again. If you pay too much attention to him you’ll make him angry, and that will make his convulsions go on longer. Eat your dinner and pay no attention to him.”, and “Good friends, think of this as nothing more than a strange habit. It’s nothing else. Too bad it’s spoiling our pleasure tonight.” Again, although some may say it is all for power, I cannot stop sensing she is trying her best not to make her husband embarrass himself in front of the nobelty.

Even so, and perhaps because of her love towards Macbeth, she follows the same path as her husband, haunted with nightmares and turning insane. Although she had shown her strength till then, after in Act Three Scene Four when her husband Macbeth acts weirdly due to the ghosts he see of those of whom he murdered, she starts getting worried from the feeling of guilt. It turns out that she was not that mentally strong. In Act Five Scene 1, as she is sleepwalking in the middle of the night, she says “thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?—What, will these hands ne'er be clean?—No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that. You mar all with this starting.”, “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, Oh, Oh!” She is taunted with the smell of blood on her hand, trying to get it off, and washing is often said to be an action of sign of guilt. Her idea of killing King Duncan lead in the end, putting herself to death.

In conclusion, although Lady Macbeth may seem like the evil one, making her husband kill King Duncan and become nuts, she was a woman who loved her husband, and ironically killed by her own misdeed.