Essay on Lady Macbeth's Feminism

Old High School Paper I wrote on Lady Macbeth

Sources are below.

Please read this out of interest, not for academic purposes.  If you do plan to use any ideas in a paper, please do not copy any ideas for any papers unless you plan to give due credit.

I also want to apologize for the gradual increase in the number of grammatical errors. I will hopefully make the attempt to fix them later.

At the first glimpse of Lady Macbeth, she is a character of deep mystery and unknown motivations. These motivations manifest themselves into a sort of sexual lust for power, which gives her the image of having strong, raw power. Yet this strong, powerful image transforms into a weak woman with no self control. Joan Larsen Klein’s essay, ‘Lady Macbeth: ‘Infirm of Purpose’, (168-179) offers a perspective empathizing Lady Macbeth’s life in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Although Lady Macbeth’s uncontrollable, vulnerable nature as a woman partly leads her to her death, she also has twisted motives from some evil spirit that when physically enforced, would slowly destroy her complete state of being.
As Lady Macbeth enters the play, she is not viewed as the typical female character of that time period, but portrayed as a deviant controlled by some dark, mysterious power. According to Klein, Lady Macbeth’s temptation for evil is very similar to Eve’s temptation to the serpent as, “the serpent was able to seduce Eve…because she was the weaker vessel” (Klein 168). In the Biblical case and the case of Lady Macbeth, both cases contribute to the downfall of their own ‘domains’. From this stereotypical notion of male over female dominance, it appears that on the surface, she gains great power from being unsexed and from losing her innocence (Macbeth 1.5.42). Yet, deep down, “th’ innocent flower, / But be the serpent under ‘t” (Macbeth 1.5.66-7). When personifying the flower to be innocent, she not only represents the sense of security being falsified with the people she wants to deceive but also represents her own false perception of this sense of safety with the evil spirits. As people are usually vulnerable to change, this personification also foreshadows how Lady Macbeth would change when this ‘serpent’ would completely take over her mind and soul from having some innocence in the past to losing it all to temptation and sin.

As this evil starts to manifest itself into Lady Macbeth, she starts to lose her own identity to the extent that she is displaced from society. Klein argues that women are not capable of violence and that all her thoughts are just fleeting ideas (Klein 173). Yet, it is Lady Macbeth who negotiates with the witches; Macbeth only accepts what the witches say. Because of the previous implication of a person’s capability to change, Lady Macbeth indeed starts to change to be the ‘serpent’ that would destroy any innocence. As Macbeth questions the murder, Lady Macbeth is the one that makes sure that the murder would take place; she exclaims to Macbeth to, “screw your courage to the sticking place, / And we’ll not fail” (Macbeth 1.7.60-1). Here the Renaissance characteristics of the woman of charity and compassion are not portrayed, but a determined, powerful person is revealed. Therefore, this deviation from the ideal woman hints at the fact that she physically gave her life in order to aid the prophecy of the witches. Since, “she forfeits the power for good which derives from the practice of pity, she is left only with loss and weakness” (Klein 171). Since she gave all her good to evil, she can not ever do good, and after the murder of King Duncan (Macbeth 2.2.1-14), she starts to lose some of her ‘raw’ strength. It seems that both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth separate and the evil spirits or weird sisters would start to move into Macbeth. If Lady Macbeth’s strength came from these spirits, after the murder, there was no need for this strength from Lady Macbeth; it was up to Macbeth’s tyrannical, unruly kingship for the witches’ prophecy to completely come to fruition.

After the death of King Duncan, Lady Macbeth begins another transformation into a weaker being. Before the murder, Lady Macbeth was portrayed as the commander and Macbeth her follower. Although Lady Macbeth seems strong willed shortly after the murder, she starts to become more worried. When speaking to Macbeth, she asks, “Why did you bring these daggers from the place? / They must lie there: go carry them, and smear / The sleepy grooms with blood” (Macbeth 2.2.47-9). She starts to take more precautions to make sure that Macbeth’s rule was safe. Yet, in doing so, she also starts to transform into the Renaissance woman. After the murder, she never talks about her aspirations to rule, but makes sure that Macbeth is satisfied. Throughout her life, even when she is in the process of being unsexed, she is always deep down filled with ‘human kindness’ no matter how much she wants to change herself into a darker being; she would never leave any of her innocence (Klein 173). The argument that Lady Macbeth’s last job as a housekeeper or caregiver was shortly after the murder does not seem valid (Klein 174). Rather, these were the last jobs of Lady Macbeth when she was not in her normal condition. Her temporary ‘unsexing’ ends here and soon she begins to feel emotions outside the range of passion and revenge. All of her actions while she was or thought she was under the influence of passion did not come from the desire to please Macbeth, but to make sure that Macbeth would have power. Though Macbeth would be pleased with power, Lady Macbeth did not seem to care if Macbeth was pleased; her conversations with Macbeth were very forward and only made sure that he would receive the kingship, almost as if it was part of some plan. If her actions were to be interpreted as such, she was not really in control of her own emotions. But after the murder, she develops many emotions that are typical of a woman. Because of these fragile human emotions, she becomes more sensitive to her surroundings. As a lady, Lady Macbeth starts to worry about Macbeth. Shortly after the banquet scene, Lady Macbeth says Macbeth, “lack the season of all natures, sleep” (Macbeth 3.5.42). She is seen more as a caregiver, while Macbeth, who once could be empathized with, was now a tyrant. As she starts to sense this loneliness, her weakness starts to reveal itself (Klein 174-5). Her emotions would eventually get into her mind and control her physically.

Lady Macbeth as a woman with the large burdens of guilt and fear, starts to experience the manifestation of these emotions to the point of losing her mind and life. When the guilt that Lady Macbeth contains becomes exposed, her guilt from her past becomes a complete darkness that nothing can brighten (Klein 177). At this point, this does not seem to be any sort of evil spirit, yet Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking is more psychological. This darkness comes from her looming guilt of all her actions, no matter who motivated the actions. If she was controlled by evil, she would have the ability to hide her emotions under the ‘innocent flower’. Yet, Lady Macbeth finally sees the “damned spot” (Macbeth 5.1.39) and, “All / the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little / hand” (Macbeth 5.1.53-55). The guilt of blood that she has revealed will not ever come out, therefore, her emotions would lead to her demise. This guilt is not necessarily her fault. If Lady Macbeth was possessed by evil at the time of the murder, it was not her that enacted the guilt. Since she does not commit the murder under her own intentions, therefore, she would never be able to wipe away the guilt. But, physically, she is the one who enforced the murder, which gives her the illusion that she is guilty. With this guilt that burdens her, and the fact that she really had no one to care for her, she would lose her motivation to live.

Lady Macbeth’s suicide, caused by a variety of reasons, seems to be dismissed as insignificant. Lady Macbeth, who was gradually becoming more unstable from all her experiences and reflections of what she did, had no reason to live anymore. Her marriage with Macbeth was illegitimate once Lady Macbeth gave her life to the weird witches. In the OED, the word weird used in the context of Macbeth is a being that has the ability to control fate or destiny supernaturally. This word is especially important regarding Lady Macbeth’s suicide because once Lady Macbeth gave her life to the weird witches, Lady Macbeth would be considered basically a useless pawn in the plot. As the witches take over, their concept of destiny is not as it appears as face value. Even though Lady Macbeth may have overcome evil influence, her destiny, like Macbeth’s destiny, would lead to her ultimate demise. As time progressed, Lady Macbeth becomes weaker to the extent that she is, “ ‘womanly’ only in that she is sick and weak” (Klein 179). As she became weaker, the witches had a stronger influence with Macbeth. Once the witches completely took over Macbeth, this represented any connection between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, thus leading to Lady Macbeth’s death. Like Duncan’s death, Lady Macbeth’s suicide was not revealed. This hiding of Lady Macbeth’s death further reinforces her growing insignificance with Macbeth. Macbeth hints at this when he thinks, “She should have died hereafter” (Macbeth 5.5.17). He did not care about her life because he was more concerned about his own life at that point. In the end of Klein’s argument, she states that, “the act of self-murder--- in contrast to her husband, whose single attribute now is the “direst cruelty” she begged for, who wills himself to murder…he is fearless, that no “horrors” can move him (5.5.13)” (Klein 179). Yet, Macbeth does have emotions, but because of the evil conscious that clouded his judgment, his fears are never realized, which led him to risk his own life, but having all odds against him. Therefore, the deaths of both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are complementary to each other because their destiny from their negotiations with evil slowly replaced who they really were.

In the end, Lady Macbeth gradually loses her power and motive. She is never actually truly powerful; the evil spirits that controlled her gave her the sense of power that she seemed to long for. Yet, with an immediate loss of power, her true form is revealed, and she starts to lose her sanity as well as strength. Although Lady Macbeth may not have been controlled completely by the evil spirits, they were able to set her up to lead her to her death. Therefore, as Klein stated, Lady Macbeth, in her truest form, becomes a weak and vulnerable woman.

Daniel S.

Works Cited

Klein, Joan. “Lady Macbeth ‘Infirm of Purpose’.” The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed. Carol Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. New York: Penguin Group, 1998. 240-51.


http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50282494?query_type=word&queryword=weird&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=2&search_id=Cz7x-k9sweR-4702&hilite=50282494