Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most complex female characters. She is introduced reading Macbeth's letter and immediately takes charge of the murder plot, calling on dark spirits to 'unsex' her — to strip away the compassion associated with femininity. She is the driving force behind Duncan's murder, but her psychological collapse in Act 5 reveals that the guilt she suppressed cannot be contained. Her sleepwalking scene is one of the most powerful representations of a guilty conscience in English literature.
Key Themes
Lady Macbeth can only access power by rejecting her femininity ('unsex me') and channelling ambition through her husband, exposing how patriarchal structures deny women direct political agency.
Her arc is defined by the return of suppressed guilt — the confident dismissal of 'a little water' in Act 2 becomes the obsessive hand-washing of Act 5, proving that conscience cannot be silenced.
Her ambition matches or exceeds Macbeth's, yet it must be expressed vicariously through him; she is the architect of the murder plan and the force that overcomes his hesitation.
She instructs Macbeth to 'look like th' innocent flower / But be the serpent under't', and performs the role of gracious hostess while orchestrating Duncan's murder.
Her invocation of dark spirits to 'unsex' her aligns her with the Witches and the demonic, suggesting she willingly opens herself to evil forces to achieve her ambitions.
She actively corrupts both herself (suppressing natural compassion) and Macbeth (weaponising his masculinity to goad him into murder), making her a co-agent of the play's moral disintegration.
Character Arc
Reads Macbeth's letter and immediately resolves on murder, fearing he is 'too full o' th' milk of human kindness'. Her soliloquy invokes dark spirits to 'unsex' her, revealing both her determination and the fact that she must actively suppress her femininity to act.
When Macbeth wavers, she deploys devastating psychological manipulation: questioning his masculinity ('When you durst do it, then you were a man') and invoking the horrific image of dashing her own baby's brains out. She is the architect of the murder plan.
Takes practical control after the murder, returning the daggers Macbeth was too shaken to replace. Her dismissive 'A little water clears us of this deed' contrasts starkly with Macbeth's anguished guilt — but this line is devastatingly ironic given her later obsessive hand-washing.
As Macbeth takes control and orders Banquo's murder without her knowledge, she is progressively marginalised. At the banquet she must cover for his breakdown, but her power over him has evaporated. She vanishes from the play for almost two acts.
Re-emerges in the sleepwalking scene, compulsively washing imaginary blood from her hands: 'Out, damned spot!' The guilt she suppressed in Act 2 has consumed her. Her fragmented prose (she no longer speaks in verse) mirrors her shattered psyche. She dies offstage — possibly by suicide.
Key Quotes
“Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.”
Act 1, Scene 5
The imperative 'unsex me' reveals the link between femininity and compassion in the Jacobean worldview — she must renounce her womanhood to commit murder. The invocation of 'spirits' aligns her with the Witches and the supernatural, suggesting she is willing to transgress natural and divine order.
Theme Links
The plea to be 'unsexed' exposes the Jacobean assumption that femininity and murderous ambition are incompatible — she must literally renounce womanhood to access the power she craves.
By invoking dark spirits she voluntarily opens herself to demonic influence, mirroring the Witches' communion with evil and placing herself outside the natural Christian order.
The speech reveals ambition so consuming that she is willing to sacrifice her very identity — her gender, her compassion, her humanity — to achieve the crown.
“Look like th' innocent flower, / But be the serpent under 't.”
Act 1, Scene 5
The flower/serpent imagery directly echoes the Biblical fall (the serpent in Eden), associating Lady Macbeth with Eve and original sin. It also encapsulates the play's central theme of appearance vs reality — she instructs Macbeth to perform innocence while concealing murderous intent.
Theme Links
The flower/serpent antithesis is the play's most concentrated image of deception — innocence as a performed surface concealing deadly intent beneath.
The Biblical serpent allusion associates Lady Macbeth with the tempter in Eden, casting her as the agent who corrupts Macbeth and causes the 'fall' of Scotland's moral order.
She takes the role of strategic instructor, directing her husband's public performance — her power operates through manipulation rather than direct action, the only route available to her within patriarchal constraints.
“A little water clears us of this deed.”
Act 2, Scene 2
Her dismissive tone contrasts Macbeth's horror and establishes her as the psychologically stronger partner — at this point. The dramatic irony is devastating: in Act 5, no amount of water can remove the imaginary blood. Shakespeare shows that guilt cannot be rationalised away.
Theme Links
The line's confident dismissal of guilt is devastatingly ironic — in Act 5, she will compulsively wash her hands, proving that the guilt she rationalised away has merely been suppressed, not removed.
She believes guilt can be managed as easily as a physical stain, confusing the external appearance of clean hands with genuine moral innocence — a delusion the play systematically destroys.
Her casual reduction of regicide to a 'deed' that water can clear reveals how deeply she has corrupted her own moral framework, treating the ultimate crime as a practical inconvenience.
“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!”
Act 5, Scene 1
The exclamatory, fragmented prose (not verse) signals her mental collapse. 'Damned' carries both its colloquial and theological weight — she is spiritually condemned. The compulsive hand-washing inverts her earlier confidence, and the word 'spot' reduces Duncan's murder to an indelible stain on her conscience.
Theme Links
The compulsive hand-washing is the physical eruption of repressed guilt — the 'little water' of Act 2 has become an endless, futile ritual, proving conscience cannot be silenced through willpower.
The spirits she invited in Act 1 have, in a sense, answered: her madness can be read as demonic possession or divine punishment, the supernatural consequences of her willing transgression.
Her collapse can be read as the patriarchal order reasserting itself — the woman who dared to 'unsex' herself and seize masculine power is punished with madness and death, a gendered cautionary tale.
Key Relationships
Their arcs are symmetrical inversions: she begins strong and ends broken; he begins hesitant and ends hardened. In Act 1 she drives the action; by Act 3 he excludes her. Their final separation — she dies offstage while he barely reacts — is the ultimate measure of how ambition has destroyed their partnership.
Lady Macbeth's invocation of spirits ('Come, you spirits') parallels the Witches' supernatural power. Shakespeare creates a deliberate echo: all the female figures in the play are associated with the transgression of natural order, reflecting Jacobean anxieties about women who wielded power outside patriarchal structures.
She claims she would have killed Duncan herself, 'Had he not resembled / My father as he slept' — revealing a crack in her resolve that foreshadows her collapse. Even in her most ruthless moment, she cannot fully suppress her humanity.
Writer’s Methods
Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth to explore Jacobean gender anxieties. Her 'unsex me' speech disrupts the natural order, and her punishment — madness and death — can be read as the patriarchal reassertion of femininity's 'proper' place. The shift from verse to prose in the sleepwalking scene is a masterful structural device: verse = control, prose = disintegration. The hand-washing motif creates a structural arc across the whole play (from confidence to compulsion).
Grade 7+ Point
WOWA feminist reading (e.g. Janet Adelman) sees Lady Macbeth as trapped: she can only access power by channelling it through her husband and by rejecting her own identity ('unsex me'). Her destruction is not just guilt but the impossibility of being a powerful woman within a patriarchal system. The play punishes her ambition more than Macbeth's — he dies fighting, she dies broken — revealing a gendered double standard even within tragedy.
Key Vocabulary
A system where men hold primary power; women are subordinate
Violation of a social, moral, or natural boundary
An archetype of a seductive, dangerous woman who leads men to ruin
Physical symptoms caused by mental distress — e.g. the imagined blood
When the audience knows something a character does not — e.g. 'A little water'
Exam Tip
AOAlways link Lady Macbeth's collapse to Shakespeare's message about guilt: no matter how much a person rationalises evil, the conscience cannot be silenced. Top-band answers explore how her arc critiques both gender norms *and* the human cost of ambition.