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Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Macbeth’ presents the themes of ambition, the supernatural, and guilt and illustrates the consequences of regicide. Written for audiences of the 16th century, the Scottish tragedy shows how the Great Chain of Being would have been disrupted if the foiled Gunpowder Plot was successful. The purposeful killing of a monarch is often associated with the forceful taking of power. Such violent acts were typically only committed by men of this era. Lady Macbeth, however, inverts the gender roles of the time, ultimately causing Malcolm to deem her a ‘fiend-like queen’. In the 1600s, those who were even suspected of soliciting or consorting with the devil were considered a dangerous threat and their lives would be at stake (quite literally). Lady Macbeth’s thoughts were seen as a sin and would be considered as an extension of the devil, therefore she does fit the definition of a fiend. Today, however, many might look at her with sympathy as she is clearly grasping for belonging and a purpose, given that she has been unable to produce an heir. Although many modern audiences perceive Lady Macbeth as a victim and believe she is falsely accused of being a ‘fiend-like queen’, I do not agree. There is much evidence throughout the play to prove that she quietly pushes her husband and herself into an overwhelming downward spiral, pushing them both into a physically and mentally unstable position.
At the time that Shakespeare was writing his plays, regicide was the most fiendish act a human could commit: killing the divine ruler would result in disrupting the Great Chain of Being and the natural order of things. I perceive Lady Macbeth as a figure related close to hell as she manipulates her husband, who she thinks is “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” to go through with the sinful murder of King Duncan. To the audience of the 1600s, the idea of Lady Macbeth being more ambitious and ruthless than Macbeth was frightening against the misogynistic view of a usual woman’s role. Just like the raven, she preys on others specifically with more kindness and power than her. Even when Macbeth says that he has no reason to kill Duncan but his own ambition and that he believes this reason alone causes people to “rush towards their downfall”, she still manages to persuade him to commit regicide through the act of “pouring spirits” into his ear. Lady Macbeth taunts Macbeth that he would be more of a man if he goes through with it. She challenges him with her own commitment and what she would do for him to gain more power. Although she grieved not having her own child, she would go so far as to “have plucked [her] nipples from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out”, showing her inhuman obsession with taking power. She uses against Macbeth her strong manipulating side, making him feel inferior in this relationship and needing to commit regicide to prove his ‘manliness’. Without this, Macbeth would have little reason to want to kill Duncan who respected him highly and had given him the position of Thane of Cawdor. This shows that it was an out-of-character moment for Macbeth who would not have killed Duncan if not controlled by someone else, namely Lady Macbeth.
The first time the audience ever sees and hears from Lady Macbeth is when she is reading and reacting to Macbeth’s letter setting out the witches’ prophecy that he will become king. After receiving the news via letter that King Duncan will be spending the night at her castle, she delivers a soliloquy talking to spirits and witches, asking them to ‘unsex’ her, asking to be purged of her natural, or God-given femininity. She wants this because she considers Macbeth too weak or nice to kill Duncan, and starts to assume her role in the murder. The rhythm of her speech is incantatory, reflecting the tone and style of the witches, leading the audience to view her in a similar light, with similar fiendish behavior. Her desire to change her sex is wishing for an act of the supernatural, to enable her to do an evil thing. For Shakespeare’s audience who would all have had strong religious beliefs based on the Bible, changing sex from the one God gave you would have been an unholy and terrifying act. This change and the motivation sets her in a demonic light. Lady Macbeth is a divided character, playing to both classic portrayals of females throughout history. She wishes to be ‘unsexed’, so as to have the power and violence a man is perceived to have, but then also uses her feminine charm to her advantage to present herself as innocent and vulnerable when she needs to avoid suspicion.
After Macbeth had killed the rightful king, Duncan, the Great Chain of Being is imbalanced. This change was symbolized in the play when an owl shrieks, which was traditionally perceived as an ill-omen. The owl shriek is like the placing of a curse on the Macbeths and the start of their growing paranoia through the rest of the play, leading to their deaths d as a justified punishment for their actions. The paranoia appears fastest for Macbeth, as he sees a ghost of Banquo whom he killed. Lady Macbeth appears the more stable of the two, taking charge of him; she has a facade she puts on – an innocent front to hide behind – which she tries to project onto Macbeth as she commands him to “look like an innocent flower, but be the serpent under it”. Lady Macbeth is, at this point in the play, comfortable with the act of murder and lying to cover it up, and less affected by the crime than her husband. Here, Shakespeare’s audience would see Lady Macbeth adding lies and deceit on top of their sins of greed and murder, and so shamelessly breaking yet another of the 10 commandments, with which the audience would have been very familiar. As the driving force behind these acts the audience would perceive Lady Macbeth as a deeply evil woman.
Lady Macbeth does not have much of a physical presence for the majority of the play and appears in two distinct phases towards the beginning and the end. She is a dynamic character and her persona changes significantly throughout the play. At the start, she is a strong commanding character, willing to do anything and consult with the spirits to get what she wants and thinks is best for her and Macbeth. She is clear about what is to be done, and drives and manipulates Macbeth to murder. It is almost as if she is possessed by evil spirits. After a period away from the stage, for which the audience does not know what she is doing, be it good or bad, she returns and starts to become a mad, vulnerable woman consumed by guilt. Finally, her suicide is shown as a consequence of her hunger for power overwhelming her, as she lapses back into the feminine helplessness she had earlier rejected. The fiendish force driving her lust for power and the murder of King Duncan – whether this be her own mind or an evil spirit – appears to become too much for her mind and body to bear, eventually destroying both. So, whatever her reason, the audience, familiar with the Bible, would know that suicide was the ultimate sin, destroying your God-given life and body and so achieving her pinnacle of evil.
Not long before Lady Macbeth’s suicide, a character called Seyton enters the play. This name can be seen as a hint to the name Satan, which is the Devil. It is Seyton who enters to tell Macbeth that his queen has killed herself. The audience can conclude in hindsight that Satan has arrived to take Lady Macbeth to Hell for her fiendish actions. This thought is set up earlier in the play when she says “nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark”, showing she didn’t want her deeds to be seen by God as she knew it was wrong. However, her actions were seen and she deserved to go to Hell. If she was falsely accused of being a fiend-like queen, then the true decider (God) would have put her in Heaven.
A modern audience might see Lady Macbeth as wrongly accused of being a fiend-like queen, and as one who is clearly suffering profound grief and poor mental health in the wake of child loss, leading her to take her own life, thereby inspiring some sympathy for her from the audience. However, if she were to face trial today for her role in Duncan’s murder, none of these things would be sufficient defenses to prevent or shorten her sentencing, as they do not justify the killing of King Duncan. There is no justification for her struggle as a childless woman and her power-hungry and murderous actions. In conclusion, I believe that Lady Macbeth deserves the title of a ‘fiend-like queen’; she is an unbalanced and uncomfortable character, regardless of the period in which an audience experiences the play.
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