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The play Macbeth takes place in Scotland during a time of turmoil and battle, in the tragedy Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth commit regicide to become King and Queen. This theme of ambition thrives in the play and is the main catalyst for the entire tragedy. Lady Macbeth is a significant character in Macbeth as she is one of the main protagonists, without her the play arguably would not be a tragedy and Macbeth might not have encountered his downfall. In the play, Shakespeare, the renaissance dramatist, introduced themes of the supernatural such as the witches to help the audience understand Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is arguably presented as a supernatural character as she closely relates with evil and believes that to gain power you must gain masculinity. However, this ambition she so clearly seeks converts into guilt and eventually ends in suicide for her character, her death underlines how she was blinded by catastrophic ambition. Lady Macbeth`s significance in this tragedy is that her female character goes against the gender stereotypes of the Jacobean era as at the start of the play she controls her husband instead of him having power over her.
At the beginning of Macbeth, Shakespeare uses deception of the character of Lady Macbeth to exaggerate who she becomes later on in the play. Lady Macbeth is seen reading Macbeth’s letter, which included his encounter with the witches, this scene is also the first time Lady Macbeth hears about the prophecies. Macbeth ends his letter with dearest partner of greatness (1.5.10)which shows us that Macbeth views his wife as an equal power which goes against the status quo of the Shakespearean era, as normally the male is superior to the female. After Lady Macbeth reads the letter containing the prophecies, she concludes they will come true, however, she doubts Macbeth’s strength and masculinity, so she forces Macbeth into killing Duncan using manipulative techniques. These techniques used in Macbeth included persuasion ‘Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under (1.5.74-75), the noun serpent is related to the devil as that is the side, she is making him join, she also tried belittling him Then you were a man’ (1.7.49) which successfully emasculated him to commit regicide. This approach was instrumental to the regicide of Duncan as it encouraged him to impress his wife. Lady Macbeth also uses a soliloquy to convince Macbeth that regicide is the only way he can become a king; she says Macbeth may not have the capacity to join her as he is too full o the milk of human kindness (1.5. this metaphor challenges Macbeth’s masculinity and lack of strength. In this soliloquy we also see Lady Macbeth asking for her female fade to be stripped away unsex here (1.5.38-43) she uses these words to exaggerate her de-womanizing, to prepare for the regicide. Lady Macbeth’s significance in these scenes is her ambition encouraging Macbeth`s ambition and manipulating Macbeth into thinking killing Duncan is a clever plan.
As the play progresses Shakespeare highlights the direst intentions of Lady Macbeth, and how she has complete control over her husband, Macbeth. The progression of the plot leads to Duncan`s murder where Lady Macbeth explained to Macbeth her reasoning for not participating in the regicide itself as to her it resembled my father (2.2.12-13)This is significant to the character of Lady Macbeth as it is the first glimpse of weakness we see from her. Lady Macbeth’s behavior in (2.2.15-20)contrasted with her behavior in previous scenes as she appeared jumpy and panicked due to her short dialogue Now the couples short exchange reflex`s on the frantic urgency they are left with as they have disrupted the divine order, an unforgiving sin. After the couple completes the heinous regicide, Lady Macbeth ironically orders Macbeth the wash his hands, as they are covered in Duncan`s blood A little water clears us of this deed (2.2.70)This line foreshadows future events when Lady Macbeth`s wrongdoing overrules her, and she cannot wash off the blood as it represents guilt. This is highly significant to her character in the plot as it is in this scene she realized she too was involved in the murder of Duncan, and this scene itself is the source of her descent. The noticeable dominance she has in this act, counteracts stereotypical gender roles, as normally men have the main say in what to do, however, Lady Macbeth is stepping up to the male role in their relationship Shame itself (3.4.78) in attempts to bring Macbeth out of his ethereal trance. However, Lady Macbeth’s significance in this act is her imperative orders to Macbeth, as, without them, Macbeth wouldn`t have known how to cover up the suspicion and the murder scene itself.
Further along the tragedy, we are taken to the chaotic banquet scene for Lady Macbeth (3.4), shortly after they are (off stage) made King and Queen. The disruption begins when the ghost of Banquo appears at the table`s full (3.4.46), but only Macbeth can see it forcing Lady Macbeth into distracting their guests as she doesn`t want to arouse suspicion. Lady Macbeth`s importance in this scene was to attempt her manipulative techniques once again on Macbeth, or else he could incidentally confess to the regicide of Duncan. Her scheming techniques as seen in other acts (1.7), shows us that the old Lady Macbeth has returned from her point of weakness. Nonetheless insulting and belittling him you look but, on a stool, (3.4.68) didn`t work this time. The failure in her techniques symbolizes how her character has changed after the regicide, due to the consequences of the committed sin. This is a key scene in the significance of Lady Macbeth as the audience realizes she has lost touch with Macbeth, and can no longer control him like before. As a result of the banquet events the occurrence of Lady Macbeth and her significance in the play diminishes dramatically as she doesn`t make an appearance for a whole act. In the last scene, she shares with her husband that there is a considerable contrast in her personality from the start of the play I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more (3.5.36-37). Lady Macbeth underwent a change of heart which caused her character to go into an unconscious spiral of madness and great perturbation of nature (5.1.8-9) which is instrumental to the development of her character as she has come to the end of her own battle with sinfulness. The blame for her downfall was that her ambition had converted into guilt and eventually built up to suicide. The significance of her character in Lady Macbeth’s final moments is to get across the consequences of regicide to the audience and the immense destruction it causes to their sanity.
In conclusion, Lady Macbeth is a cautionary character to the other characters in the plot and the audience at the time. The reason for this is that she drastically subverts gender normalities of the Jacobean era so much, that stepping out of the role of women, teaches us that it doesn`t work, in this case, and that men shouldn`t listen to the ideas of their wives. She also plays a pivotal role in the play as extracting her character would have led to an entirely different play without the regicide or the deaths of her and her husband.
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