In Christian European tradition, it was Adam’s wife, Eve who is ultimately the cause of his downfall. We can only speculate and remember in Macbeth nearly all the female characters present are bad ones.
So why is it that Shakespeare chose Macbeth’s wife to be the main character inciting Macbeth to carry out the murder of the king? We see in other plays such as ‘ Othello‘ that Iago for instance is an evil and manipulative figure. If Lady Macbeth had not been present or if his wife had been another sort of person, he would not have decided to kill his cousin and king of Scotland Duncan. If there had been no witches, there simply would have been no story as Macbeth would never have dreamed of being king as he would not have felt that supernatural prophecies indicated he could be one. We can often ascertain the importance or role of a character if we were to imagine they were not there. She is calling for Macbeth to come so that she can speak to him and incite him to do what is ‘needed’ to get the ‘golden round’ i.e. She utters the now famous words in her solilqouy after reading the letter: As the whole play is about witchcraft and the supernatural and its very real (in the mind of King James I and those who wished to gain his favour such as Macbeth) nature, lady Macbeth is not dismissive of this but takes this very seriously. We first see lady Macbeth in Act 1, Scene 5 of the play where she receives a letter from her husband where he tells her about the witches and the accuracy of their prophecies. However rather than a passive waiting for the prophecy regarding his future kingship to happen naturally Macbeth instead decides to actively try and realise this by his murderous and treacherous actions. However Macbeth could merely have heard their prophecies and been content with being Thane of Cawdor and then perhaps felt that fate would mean regardless of whatever he did or not do that he would become king anyway if the witches prophecies are true which they indeed seem to be. They are unpleasant creatures that ignite in Macbeth what was most likely a latent and dormant desire for power and status within him but is then activated by them for deadly and tragic consequences. We first have the witches all of whom are three females and are malevolent beings without whom Macbeth would not have embarked upon the destructive trail of blood and killing that happens. Some may argue that the play Macbeth depicts women or femininity in general in a very negative manner. In this article we will be analysing her character.
She exemplifies darkness and the evil potency of the human greed and lust for power. Out of the many characters that feature in Shakespeare’s various works, lady Macbeth is arguably the most disturbing.
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