Who She Is
Wife of Macbeth and lady of the castle at Inverness, where King Duncan is to sleep. She gives a name to what her husband desires: she reads the letter in which he tells of the meeting with the witches, concludes that his nature is too good for the short road to the crown, and takes the night's plan for herself. She speaks in the name of cruelty, calls on spirits to empty her of pity, and answers each of his hesitations with the charge of cowardice. But she is also the one who pays the most surprising price: the crime costs her sleep and, it is said, her life, and the play brings her back to the stage sleepwalking, rubbing a stain that no one else sees.
Trajectory
In Scene 5 of Act I, Lady Macbeth reads her husband's letter and finds him too full of the milk of human kindness: he lacks no ambition, but he lacks the wickedness that should go with it. On learning that Duncan will sleep there, she calls on spirits to free her from her sex and fill her with cruelty. When Macbeth arrives, she takes command: he must appear innocent and leave the night's plan to her.
Lady Macbeth:
Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty. [...] Come to my woman's breasts / And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers, / Wherever in your sightless substances / You wait on nature's mischief!
In Scene 6 of Act I, she receives the king with words of humility and service, and he, who asks for the host, lets her lead him inside. In Scene 7 of Act I, she undoes Macbeth's retreat: she accuses him of cowardice, challenges his manhood, reminds him that it was he who spoke to her of the plan, and exposes it: ply the chamberlains with drink and put the blame on them. He backs away, saying the king has honored him (the other reasons, kinsman, subject, and host, he weighs alone, before she comes in), and she answers that retreating is cowardice.
In Scene 1 of Act II, Banquo tells Macbeth that the king has sent a jewel to her, naming her a most gracious hostess, on the very night she is preparing the crime. In Scene 2 of Act II, she waits anxiously, after drugging the chamberlains and leaving the daggers in plain sight, and confesses that she would have done the deed herself, if the king had not reminded her so much of her father as he slept. When Macbeth returns shaken, she is the one who takes the daggers, stains the chamberlains with blood, and tells him to wash his hands, saying a little water will clean them. In Scene 3 of Act II, she cries out for help when the crime is discovered and is taken off the stage.
In Scene 2 of Act III, the two admit that the crown has brought no peace. She repeats that what is done is done, and she loses the place she had: Macbeth now decides alone and asks her to be innocent until he applauds. In Scene 4 of Act III, she tries to cover up the attack at the banquet, rebukes him for cowardice in front of Banquo's ghost with the same question she used in Scene 7 of Act I, and sends the nobles away.
In Scene 1 of Act V, she reappears sleepwalking, with a candle, rubbing her hands and murmuring about blood, Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff's wife. The Doctor, who watches her with a Gentlewoman, concludes that the case is beyond medicine.
Lady Macbeth:
Yet here's a spot. [...] Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One, two. Why, then, 'tis time to do 't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear?
In Scene 5 of Act V, Macbeth hears women's screams, and Seyton tells him that the queen is dead. In Scene 7 of Act V, Malcolm mentions in passing the diabolical Queen, who, as is believed, took her own life with her own hands.
Themes Embodied
She is the practice of the couple: she drugged the chamberlains, left the daggers, returned them to the room, and said that a little water would clean them. And yet, in Scene 2 of Act II, she admits that she did not kill the king because he reminded her of her father. The act costs something to someone who pretends not to fear it, and this is what announces the Guilt she will carry alone.
The roles reverse. In Scene 7 of Act I, she is the one who pushes and he the one who hesitates, and in Scene 2 of Act III he decides and she repeats formulas of comfort. In Scene 4 of Act III, she uses against his vision the same question, whether he is a man, that she used to lead him to the first crime, and now it no longer works.
Lady Macbeth's Ambition is for her husband, and that is why the text shows her stronger than he is at the start and more fragile at the end. She wanted the crown for both of them, and when the crime demands further crimes, she is left outside the plan, with no place in the play she helped set in motion.
What she told her husband to set aside returns in her as a symptom: she sleeps with a light on, sees a stain that will not come out, and in her sleep reveals what she kept silent while awake. The Doctor recognizes that the illness is of the spirit, not of the body. And the play ends without a word of compassion for her, only a passing mention of the new king: the Power she helped seize moves on without giving her a place.
Relationships
- Macbeth: the husband she pushes into the crime in Scene 7 of Act I, and who leaves her behind from Scene 2 of Act III on.
- Duncan: the king she receives with humility in Scene 6 of Act I, and who, sleeping, reminds her of her father in Scene 2 of Act II.
- Banquo: the guest whose murder she tries to hide at the banquet in Scene 4 of Act III, and whose name comes back to her lips in Scene 1 of Act V.
- Macduff: the baron whose wife she names in Scene 1 of Act V, while sleeping, among the dead who haunt her.
- Malcolm: the new king who, in Scene 7 of Act V, mentions her only in passing, without a word of compassion.