lit essay

first para

In Macbeth, three witches predict that Macbeth will become King of Scotland, and he and his wife murder King Duncan so Macbeth can take the throne. Before the murder, Lady Macbeth asks spirits to remove her womanhood. Her request and her suicide show that her society has no place for a woman who seeks power, so the only person left to punish her is herself.

second para

In Act 1, Lady Macbeth reads her husband’s letter about the prophecy and learns that Duncan will stay at their castle that night. She worries that Macbeth is too kind to kill the king. Alone, she says, “Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here” (19). By asking to be “unsexed,” she shows that she believes her womanhood will stop her from helping with the murder. She thinks women feel mercy and remorse, and men are capable of violence. She then asks the spirits to fill her with cruelty, block her remorse, and turn her breast milk to poison. This speech shows that Lady Macbeth believes the qualities she has as a woman will prevent her from committing murder, so she asks to lose them.

third para

Thompson and Ancona argue that Lady Macbeth is intelligent and ambitious but lives in a society that allows women only a passive role. They compare her to Macbeth. In Scotland, men are praised for killing in battle, so Macbeth’s murder of Duncan is an extreme form of behavior men are already expected to show. Women have no accepted role in violence, so Lady Macbeth’s part in the murder breaks every rule her society sets for women. They state, “Lady Macbeth, however, has stepped completely outside the bounds of femininity and must be punished, even if it is by her own hand” (12). I agree with Thompson and Ancona because in the “unsex me here” speech, Lady Macbeth says herself that she has to give up being a woman to carry out the murder. The authors also explain why her punishment has to come “by her own hand.” No man in the play could put a woman on trial or execute her, so the only person who can punish Lady Macbeth is Lady Macbeth.

4th para

At the end of the play, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth die in different ways. In Act 5, a doctor and a gentlewoman watch Lady Macbeth sleepwalk. She tries to wash blood off her hands and talks about Duncan’s murder and the other killings. The doctor says he cannot cure her. She dies offstage, and Malcolm later reports that she is believed to have killed herself. Macbeth is killed in battle by Macduff. Malcolm becomes king and calls the couple a butcher and his fiendish queen. Lady Macbeth’s suicide matches Thompson and Ancona’s claim that she would be punished “by her own hand.” Macbeth is punished by another man in combat, which fits his role as a soldier. Lady Macbeth broke her society’s rules for women so completely that no one else in the play could punish her, so she ended her own life.