Scene Lady Act Macbeth Macbeth’s Play Mind Final

How does this presentation of Lady Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 5 fit into the play as a whole?

The most familiar, recognisable reading of Lady Macbeth’s role in the play is that she is the puppet master who pulls – often mercilessly yanks – at Macbeth’s strings. Several aspects of her portrayal in Act 1, Scene 5 add to this view. When Macbeth enters, not only does she shape and direct his behaviour, she also speaks significantly more than he does. Macbeth’s utterances are concise and practical, hers expansive, detailed and richly embroidered with imagery, reflecting the elaborate workings of a mind masterminding a dastardly plan. The perception of Lady Macbeth as the powerful, motivating force behind the couple’s scheme is of course sharpened in Act 1, Scene 7 when, using terrifying images of infanticide and her ‘undaunted mettle’ (1.7.73) ,she taunts Macbeth for his lack of 

However, the view that insecurities lurk within Lady Macbeth's outward strength connects our extract with her final appearance in the play, in Act 5, Scene 1. In this later scene after the Macbeths’ killing spree, Lady Macbeth’s mind is ‘infected’ (5.1.72) by guilt and madness (as opposed to being possessed by demonic powers as in Act 1, Scene 5). Her speech is presented in loose, unravelling prose where questions, repetitions and reversals show a fully exposed frailty and an anxiety that ‘All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten [her] little hand’ (5.4.51).

As well as her vulnerability having developed between Act 1, Scene 5 and this final encounter with her, in the latter scene her attitude towards darkness shows progression too. Previously, Lady Macbeth had courted darkness and dimness. But by the end of the play her desire is for clarity; to be free of dirty, blemishing entities. She wants to be rid of ‘damn'd spot[s]’ (5.1.35) and the ‘murky’ (5.1.36) nature of the Hell that awaits her provokes great fear.