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Lady MacBeth, MacBeth Characters - Coggle Diagram
Lady MacBeth
Character
- initial impression of Lady MacBeth is her single-minded ambition
- she is perceptive who realises that Macbeth lacks the ruthless streak necessary to take the throne: 'too full of the milk of human kindness
- she dedicates herself to ensure that MacBeth will murder Duncan seize the crown
- Lady MacBeth is clearly the dominant partner in her marriage with MacBeth in the early stages of the play
- Lady MacBeth plans the murder of Duncan and displays her remarkable persuasion in changing MacBeths mind after he declares: 'will proceed no further in this business'
- She insults his masculinity to convince him to commit the murder: 'What beast was't then, That made you break this enterprise to me?'
- We again see her as the dominant player in the relationship, she places the muder weapon (daggers) in the guards hands framing them
- She tells MacBeth to 'wash this filthy witness' from his handsand remarks 'a little water clear us of this deed'
Character downfall
- in Act 2 scene 2, we see cracks in her strong personality, she needs alcohol to gove her false courage: 'That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold'
- post Banquet scene, we do not see Lady MacBeth a sign of the growing distance between her and MacBeth
- we see our first hint of a change in power between her and MacBeth, as he plots Banquo's murder without consulting her
- Lady MacBeth reappears in Act 5 scene 1, in this scene she shown as a shell of her former confident self we had seen in the early stages of the play
- Her mind is overwhelemed by guilt and the mental pressure of MacBeth's murders, she sleepwalks and relives the murder of Duncan in her mind
- She dreams of the blood that covered Duncan's body: 'Yet who would've thought the old man to have so much blood in him'
- In Act 5 scene 5, we are informed that Lady MacBeth has taken her life, likely due to the guilt she experienced
Monologue, Act 1 scene 5
- key moment in Lady MacBeth as she invokes dark supernatural powers to be able to commit Duncan's murder
- She calls on dark spirits to take away her womanly nature '... unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty'
- When she sees MacBeth she urges him to be 'look like the onnocent flower, but be the serpent under it' --> reinforces the image of falseness and deception
- reference to 'unsexed' so that such typically female qualities as kindness and gentleness do not prevent her from doing what she deems necessary for MacBeth to accede the throne
- Lady MacBeth contemplates committing the murder as she fears MacBeth may not be able to do it himself: 'Come thick night, and pall thee in the dunnnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes...'
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