Essay, Research Paper: Macbeth - An Analysis Of Lady Macbeth's Character

One of the main characters in the Shakespearean play Macbeth , is
his wife, Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is a very two sided character in this
play. She consistently acts differently when she is around her husband than
she does when she is alone. There are many different examples of this
contained in the play.
One of the most notable examples of this is contained in Act I Scene v
when Lady Macbeth reads the letter written to her by Macbeth. Shortly after
reading it, she makes the comment that she feels Macbeth is too kind to
murder Duncan and that he will need her help, strength, and willpower to
commit it. However, after she hears that Macbeth is returning home, she calls
upon evil spirits and other demonic entities to give her some aid. She does
this because she realizes that she doesn t have the strength of will to persuade
Macbeth into murdering Duncan after all. Then, when Macbeth arrived, just
after she finished praying for help, she acts as if she has a heart of stone and
that Macbeth is not a man if he is afraid of killing Duncan. This is a prime
example of her deception towards him, and how she acts differently when she
is alone than when she is around him.
Another example of her being two sided is the role she talks about
playing in Duncan s death, and the role that she actually does play in it.
There are a few times in the play, mostly when she is attempting to persuade
Macbeth into committing the murder, that she says he should just leave the
murder to her. Throughout the play she gradually decreases her role in the
murder until it becomes Macbeth s job to kill Duncan, not hers. This is
another very large trick on her part, but one that Macbeth also fails to see;
Whether it is because he chooses not to, or because he is too naive to realize
it.
The last noteworthy example of her inconsistency occurs between Act I
Scene vii and Act II Scene ii. In Act I Scene vii she severely scolds Macbeth
for having second thoughts about committing the murder. She tries to get rid
of his rational thoughts by saying that he must not really love her if he can
change his mind on the murder, which she says he promised her he would do.
She then says that if she promised him something, even if it was as awful as
killing her newborn babe, she would do it. Despite the fact that he never
made such a promise, he once again fails to realize that she is lying to him.
She then continues by making fun of him until she has weakened his position
on the subject and he finally agrees to her plan. However, in Act II Scene ii,
when she is alone, she makes the statement that she would have killed the
sleeping Duncan had he not looked like her father. This just proves that she
isn t nearly as strong and as evil as she pretends to be around Macbeth.
In conclusion I feel that it is fairly easy to see how two sided Lady
Macbeth is. When around Macbeth she seems to have no emotions, but when
she is alone with the audience it is quite clear that that is not really true.