MACBETH - LADY MACBETH

guys she makes me sick if this essay isn't about her i might actually die (bullet pointed version, original can be found in misc)

“unsex me here”

• she wants to take on more masculine traits in order to get the job done since women are seen as weaker

• it could also refer to evil, as a woman wanting to remove her feminine traits at the time was seen as heresy/malicious/evil spirits

• shows how Lady Macbeth is seen as a very “evil” figure and the antithesis to the ideal woman, she's masculine, not godly, is dominant over her husband, tries to commit treason, communes with evil spirits and is mean.

• she’s not seen as a man, she’s seen as a masculine woman, therefore a failed woman. the antithesis to a woman isn’t a man, who would be respected, it’s a woman who is failing at being a woman, who is seen as having failed gender. Lady Macbeth is perceived as doing this, so she is perceived as evil. this makes her unsymathetic and hateable

“no compunctious visitings of nature” / “you wait on nature's mischief”

• “visitings of nature” could refer to feminine nature, so she's asking to not have the typically kind “female” traits of kindness

• again shows her gender deviance, as her deviating from femininity is literally her asking to be evil

• in the second quote she is telling the spirits that they wait on natures mischief and the compunctious nature could be a reference to this

“you should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so.” (referring to the Weird Sisters)

• while this refers to the Weird Sisters, it could also refer to how masculinity

• can be used to present women in a negative light, similar to Lady Macbeth.

• the weird sisters have beards, and are also a driving force of evil in the play, spirits of the witchcraft.

• this shows how Lady Macbeth, another evil female character, rejecting her feminine traits

“Come to my woman's breasts And take my milk for gall” / “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 done to this”

• She is asking the spirits to take her womens milk, which is nurturing and shows her place in society for gall, which is poison

• this could also relate to “nature's mischief”, where they are taking her feminine nature for poison

• it could also relate to the second quote, where she talks about nursing a baby and how she would kill this child which could represent the poison

“That I may pour my spirits in thine ear And chastise with the valour of my tongue”

• she wants to manipulate him and wants power

• the spirits could represent demons or bad, unchristian ideals that she is going to pour into Macbeth

“Leave all the rest to me”

• she wants him to be out of the loop so she has all the control

• again showing the gender switch where she is the man carrying out the tasks and he is her weak submissive sidekick

• also shows how even though Macbeth is going to be the king, she really is the one who expects to have te power, foreshadowing for when she goes mad later and Macbeth has the power

“Was the hope drunk Wherein you dressed yourself?” / “When you durst do it, then you were a man” / “Like a poor cat i’th’adage?”

• she wants to make Macbeth feel as though he’s lesser so that he goes along with it to prove himself

• she paints him as a coward, emasculates him, compares him to a cat that is too scared to get what they need to survive

• she is manipulating Macbeth by making him feel like a bad, weak person.

“look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”

• sas a woman she is seen as an innocent flower, but she is the serpent underneath

• she asked the spirits to take her breasts for gall (poison) like poisonous snakes

• she is telling this to Macbeth, her husband, it could represent the opposite gender coding, with him being more like the woman in the relationship.

• she is a very manipulative person who is giving Macbeth advice on how to lie and deceive, showing how she could be a corrupting influence

“And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty”

• she wants her whole body to be filled with evil, no goodness, no kindness and no nuance.

• this lets Shakespeare represent her as only evil and not at all sympathetic, and makes the audience not sympathise with her

• could be a representation of misogyny of the time

“Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry ‘Hold. hold’.

• her not wanting heaven, and by extension God, to not watch her evil deeds makes her even more evil, and she doesn’t want to be stopped at all.

• she shuns the influence of God and works with spirits, and therefore is satanic and evil

“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 done to this”

• she is willing to do absolutely anything to get the throne, she is ambitious, she will kill a baby if it means winning something.

• she's also loyal to Macbeth, however this could be read as loyalty to the cause and ambition

• also killing a baby can represent her completly rejecting feminine nature, as women were expected to look after the babies