Key points
Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare that tells the story of a Scottish nobleman called Macbeth.
Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, are the main characters and their ambition and eventual downfall is key to the storyline.
Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth into killing the king and she also frames the king’s guards for his murder.
Later in the play, she is haunted by guilt and dies in tragic circumstances.
Did you know?
Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most famous female characters. The character has been played by many well-known actresses including Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard and Helen McCrory.
Plot summary
Lady Macbeth’s key moments
Click through the slideshow to see Lady Macbeth’s key moments
Image caption, Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to kill King Duncan
Lady Macbeth opens a letter from her husband telling her about the Witches and what they have promised him. She is excited about being queen. When Macbeth returns home she manipulates him into agreeing to murder the king.
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Lady Macbeth’s personality
Manipulative
Lady Macbeth fears her husband is too kind to murder the king so she manipulates him. She plans the murder and takes control of events. She makes Macbeth feel as if he is weak and unmanly if he cannot commit the murder. She also reminds Macbeth of what a powerful and great team the pair of them make, and uses that to convince Macbeth that together, they can do anything.
Cruel
Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth appears Without emotion or pity. and cruel. She makes fun of Macbeth, calling him a coward when he hesitates to in with her plan to murder King Duncan. She even says that if she had the same motive as Macbeth she would do anything – even kill a child of her own – if she had to.
Two-faced
She welcomes King Duncan warmly even though she is planning his murder. She also advises Macbeth to be two-faced.
Vulnerable
Despite her powerful image at the start of the play, Lady Macbeth is also vulnerable. The murder of King Duncan affects her mental health.
Relationships
The relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is central to the play. At the start of the play they call themselves “partners in greatness”. Macbeth trusts his wife and listens to her advice. She is able to manipulate Macbeth into killing King Duncan.
However, once Macbeth is king he plans Banquo’s murder himself, without telling Lady Macbeth. When Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost at the banquet, Lady Macbeth makes excuses for his strange behaviour. They are still a partnership, but Macbeth seems to be acting outside his wife’s control. All Lady Macbeth can do is watch as Macbeth continues to be violent, including ordering the murder of Macduff’s family.
After Act 3, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth do not appear on stage together at the same time. What does this show?
It shows that they are growing apart. Lady Macbeth can no longer control Macbeth’s actions and he becomes more and more violent. They are no longer a partnership.
Changes in character
In Act 1, Lady Macbeth appears as a powerful, confident character. Although she is at first in control of the situation, by the middle of the play Macbeth begins to make decisions without her knowledge.
At the start, Lady Macbeth ruthlessly plans King Duncan’s murder, but later she is tormented by guilt. Underneath her hardness and cunning, she is vulnerable. She starts sleepwalking and talking about Duncan’s murder in her sleep. In the end, she kills herself, overcome with guilt.
Activity - Order it
What do these key quotations mean?
… unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty!
Lady Macbeth
Act 1, scene 5
Lady Macbeth asks the dark spirits to “unsex me here”. In Shakespeare’s time, it was believed that women were naturally gentler than men. Lady Macbeth is asking to become more like a man so that she can encourage Macbeth to murder King Duncan.
Screw your courage to the sticking place and we’ll not fail.
Lady Macbeth
Act 1, scene 7
Lady Macbeth is encouraging Macbeth to stick to the plan to murder Duncan. She talks about his “courage” because she knows that he doesn’t want to be seen as a coward.
Out, damn spot!
Lady Macbeth
Act 5, scene 1
Towards the end of the play, Lady Macbeth imagines she can see spots of blood on her hands. At the start of the play, she appears to push aside any feelings of guilt. Now these emotions have overwhelmed her, and she desperately tries to clean her hands to remove the evidence of her guilt.
Come, you spirits… come, thick night…
Lady Macbeth
Act 1, scene 5
What does Lady Macbeth’s language here reveal about her character?
Lady Macbeth uses images linked to witchcraft and darkness. In Shakespeare’s time, many people in the audience would have believed that witches actually existed. When Lady Macbeth calls on “you spirits” to help her, the audience would link her to the Witches and see her as an evil character. Her language also makes her speech sound like a spell, which again links her to the Witches.
Listen to a scene
In Act 5, scene 1, Lady Macbeth walks and talks in her sleep. She imagines there’s a spot of blood on her hand that won’t wash off. Her A woman who attends to a lady such as Lady Macbeth, similar to a lady-in-waiting. is so worried, she has called the doctor.
Lady Macbeth: Yet here’s a spot.
Doctor: Hark, she speaks; I will set down what comes from her to
satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
Lady Macbeth: Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One, two. Why
then ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier,
and afeard? What need we fear? Who knows it, when none can call our power to
? Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him?
Doctor: Do you mark that?
Lady Macbeth: The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?
What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that,
my lord, no more o’ that. You mar all with this starting.
Doctor: Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gentlewoman: She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of
that. Heaven knows what she has known.
Lady Macbeth: Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O.
Doctor: What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
Gentlewoman: I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
dignity of the whole body.
Doctor: Well, well, well-
Gentlewoman: Pray God it be, sir.
Doctor: This disease is beyond my practise; yet I have known
those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.
Lady Macbeth: Wash your hands, put on your night-gown, look not so
pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.
Doctor: Even so?
Lady Macbeth: To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate.
Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; what’s
done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.
How would you describe Lady Macbeth’s emotions in this scene?
Lady Macbeth is disturbed and unhappy in this scene. Her language shows the emotions of fear and guilt. She is ing the night of King Duncan’s murder and the part she played in persuading her husband to act. She also thinks that she will go to hell for her sins.
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