Lady Macbeth quotes

“too full of the milk of human kindness”

Theme: Ambition

• Noun “milk” is a symbol for femininity and maternal nurturing. “milk” has connotations of white, purity and a blank state - perhaps suggesting who she was before she manipulated Macbeth

• Shows Lady Macbeth rejects notions of femininity

“pour my spirits in thine ear”

Theme: Ambition

• She is a femme fatale (a seductive and beautiful woman who brings disaster to anyone with whom she becomes romantically involved with) as she is not only manipulative but rejects her woman/motherhood - a typical trope of a femme fatale

• Her manipulation is salient (prominent) in the quote as she wants to taint Macbeth’s mind with her malevolent spirit

• Links to the quote: “Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty”

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

Theme: Appearance vs reality

• Noun “flower” has connotations of innocence and vulnerability, showing Lady Macbeth is trying to adhere to a typical female during the Jacobean era

• Noun “serpent” has biblical allusions to hell, temptation, treachery and the demise of mankind in Genesis when the serpent tempted Adam and Eve

• Lady Macbeth is showing that she is going to use her external appearance as a woman (weak like an “innocent flower”) as a façade to conceal her internal nature (i.e. barbaric, devilish and cunning)

“dashed the brains out”

Theme: Gender

• Masculinity is shown to be subverted and contorted by Lady Macbeth as she is an atypical woman of the Jacobean era - she yearns to embody masculine characteristics as she knows masculinity is synonymous with power. Shakespeare represents the suffering of women from the patriarchy system (where line to the throne was always for male descendants)

• Lady Macbeth disassociates herself with being a mother, which is a feminine trait through the merciless act of rejecting maternal inclinations

“Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it”

Theme: Guilt

• Lady Macbeth’s inner cowardice is presented here - she is truly afraid of the repercussions of regicide. Regardless of how hard she tries to masculinise herself, she is still constrained and restricted by her femininity and emotions of remorse and guilt. Therefore, she tries to pretend as if an ingrained fear of patricide (killing of her father) was the reason she didn’t kill Duncan herself

• She is manipulative as she operates with a liminal gender. She takes advantage of alleged feminine weakness when it works in her favour, yet brutally rejects it if it represses her

“A little water clears us of this deed”

Theme: Ambition

• Her overpowering ambition obstructs her from seeing the genuine distress of Macbeth. She uses litotes (under-exaggeration) to downplay the Duncan’s murder

• This is laced with irony as Lady Macbeth shifts to a melodramatic state of insanity and begins speaking in hyperbole once the guilt kicks in

• Euphemism hints at “deed” referring to murder. Lady Macbeth fails to face up to the reality of it and therefore must placates it into less heinous words in order to keep her (albeit ephemeral) composure

• Religious connotation: holy water is used in baptism to get rid of original sin. No amount of water is capable of ridding Lady Macbeth and her husband of regicide

“Out damned spot! Out I say”

Theme: Guilt

• The “spot” which could be interpreted as blood is emblematic of the mental scar Duncan’s murder has imprinted in her mind

• However, Shakespeare’s audience may have interpreted it differently: madness was often perceived as a sign of being possessed by demons. It was believed demons/witches had a “spot” which identified people as evil; this is further reinforced by “damned” which alludes to hell

[enters with a taper]

Theme: Guilt

A taper is a candle, signifying Lady Macbeth’s desire for light and solace in her eternal mental darkness. She is clinging onto some form of hope that she will be granted redemption, salvation and retribution for her sins, since Jesus was seen as the “light” of the world