Masculine & Ruthless

Lady Macbeth - Ruthless and Dominant

Lady Macbeth comes across as ruthless and the dominant one in her relationship with Macbeth from the moment she enters the stage.

Role - co-conspirator

Lady Macbeth takes the role of co-conspirator in the play.
Lady Macbeth is the person who comes up with the plot to kill good King Duncan.
She becomes very insistent that Macbeth should murder King Duncan, pushing him to do it and implying that he is weak and useless if he refuses.

Ruthless

When the audience first sees Lady Macbeth on stage, she is reading the letter from her husband. Even though Macbeth has not spoken about trying to take the crown in his letter, Lady Macbeth immediately wants to do this.
In her speech, she summarises her plan to manipulate Macbeth into going after the crown: 'Hie thee hither, / That I may pour my spirits in thine ear'.

Sees kindness and goodness as bad traits

She doubts that her husband can do it: 'Thou wouldst be great, / Art not without ambition, but without / The illness should attend it' (1,5).
She says that he could be more powerful and that he is ambitious, but he does not have the evil inside him to help him do what is needed.
Here, Lady Macbeth implies that she sees kindness and goodness as bad traits – she shows that she does not really think these are good parts of Macbeth’s character.

Dominant in conversation

When Macbeth arrives home, Lady Macbeth dominates (has power over) the conversation. Macbeth hardly speaks.
She decides the plan: 'O never / Shall sun that morrow see' (1,5). This suggests that King Duncan will not live to see the dawn of the next day under their roof.

Instructs husband

Lady Macbeth thinks that Macbeth is not cunning or devious enough. She thinks that he struggles to trick people.
She tells her husband to think about the facial expression that he is pulling. He should think about it to hide his true intentions. She uses the following simile: 'look like th' innocent flower, / But be the serpent under 't' (1,5).
This links back to the witch’s line: ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’ – Lady Macbeth wants her husband to practice this, to be able to encourage people to trust him, and then to betray them without warning.

Lady Macbeth - Masculine

Lady Macbeth is presented as being very masculine in her soliloquy in Act 1.

'Unsex'

'Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here' (1,5).
- When she asks to be 'unsex[ed]', she is asking the spirits to remove the feminine aspects of her character.
Women were supposed to be gentle and kind. She wants to be cruel and not feel regret over any of her actions: 'fill me from the crown to the toe topfull / Of direst cruelty' (1,5).
She wants to be able to force her husband to murder the king.

Imperative verbs

Shakespeare fills her speech in Act 1, Scene 5 with imperative (ordering) verbs to show that she is taking control: 'Come', 'fill', 'stop', 'take'.
She wants to be harder so that she can commit these crimes. These characteristics were definitely seen as masculine, but not honourable.

Breastmilk

She says, 'Come to my woman's breasts / And take my milk for gall'.
This is possibly the clearest demand to have her femininity removed.
She no longer wants to be able to nurture children with her breastmilk. She wants her breastmilk to be filled with bitter poison instead – this is a clear indication that she does not want to nurture anyone; she wants to cause pain and death.

Jacobean response

A Jacobean (during the reign of King James I of England) audience would have found her rejection of everything a woman should value very shocking.
The fact that she wants to make her husband murder the king is even more shocking.

Macbeth

Macbeth tells her 'Bring forth men-children only' (1,7). This suggests she has masculine qualities. She is so masculine that her husband thinks she should only give birth to male children (traditionally seen as the stronger sex).

1Literary & Cultural Context

1.1Context

1.1.1Tragedy

1.1.2The Supernatural & Gender

1.1.3Politics & Monarchy

1.1.4End of Topic Test - Context

2Plot Summary

2.1Act 1

2.1.1Scenes 1 & 2

2.1.2Scene 3

2.1.3Scenes 4-5

2.1.4Scenes 6-7

2.1.5End of Topic Test - Act 1

2.2Acts 2-4

2.2.1Act 2

2.2.2Act 3

2.2.3Act 4

2.3Act 5

2.3.1Scenes 1-3

2.3.2Scenes 4-9

2.3.3End of Topic Test - Acts 2-5

3Characters

3.1Macbeth

3.1.1Hero vs Villain

3.1.2Ambition & Fate

3.1.3Relationship

3.1.4Unstable

3.1.5End of Topic Test - Macbeth

3.2Lady Macbeth

3.2.1Masculine & Ruthless

3.2.2Manipulative & Disturbed

3.3Other Characters

3.3.1Banquo

3.3.2The Witches

3.3.3Exam-Style Questions - The Witches

3.3.4King Duncan

3.3.5Macduff

3.3.6End of Topic Test - Lady Macbeth & Banquo

3.3.7End of Topic Test - Witches, Duncan & Macduff

3.4Grade 9 - Key Characters

3.4.1Grade 9 - Lady Macbeth Questions

4Themes

4.1Themes

4.1.1Power & Ambition

4.1.2Power & Ambition HyperLearning

4.1.3Violence

4.1.4The Supernatural

4.1.5Masculinity

4.1.6Armour, Kingship & The Natural Order

4.1.7Appearances & Deception

4.1.8Madness & Blood

4.1.9Women, Children & Sleep

4.1.10End of Topic Test - Themes

4.1.11End of Topic Test - Themes 2

4.2Grade 9 - Themes

4.2.1Grade 9 - Themes

4.2.2Extract Analysis

5Writer's Techniques

5.1Structure, Meter & Other Literary Techniques

5.1.1Structure, Meter & Dramatic Irony

5.1.2Pathetic Fallacy & Symbolism

5.1.3End of Topic Test - Writer's Techniques

Jump to other topics