Macbeths Incredible Lady :: Free Macbeth Essays

Macbeths unconvincing noblewoman In William Shakespeares tragedy Macbeth there are two chief(prenominal) characters, one of which is more believable than the other. Lady Macbeth is not as lifelike or realistic as her husband. In this essay we shall explore her character. In Macbeth as the Imitation of an Action Francis Fergusson specifies the fears within Lady Macbeth I do not need to remind you of the great scenes preceding the murder, in which Macbeth and his Lady pull themselves together for their desperate effort. If you think over these scenes, you will recover that the Macbeths understand the action which begins here as a competition and a stunt, against reason and against nature. Lady Macbeth fears her husbands human nature, as well as her proclaim female nature, and therefore she fears the light of reason and the common dayllight world. As for Macbeth, he knows from the first that he is engaged in an irrational stunt I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / vault ambition, which oerleaps itself / And falls on the other. In this sequence there is also the fundament of outwitting or transcending time, an aspect of natures order as we know it catching up the consequences, jumping the life to come, and the like. (108) Clark and Wright in their Introduction to The Complete Works of William Shakespeare scan the character of Lady Macbeth Lady Macbeth is of a finer and more frail nature. Having fixed her eye upon the end - the attainment for her husband of Duncans crown - she accepts the fatal means she nerves herself for the terrible nights work by artificial stimulants even so she cannot strike the sleeping king who resembles her father. Having sustained her weaker husband, her own strength gives flair and in sleep, when her will cannot control her thoughts, she is piteously afflicted by the repositing of one stain of blood upon her little hand. (792) In Memoranda Remarks on the Character of Lady Macbeth, Sarah Siddons commen ts on the Ladys cold manner Macbeth announces the Kings approach and she, incognizant it should seem to all the perils which he has encountered in battle, and to all the happiness of his safety device return to her, -- for not one kind word of greeting or congratulations does she offer, -- is so entirely swallowed up by the horrible design, which has probably been suggested to her by his letters, as to have forgotten both the one and the other.