The Negative Portrayal of Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's Play, Macbeth

‘Macbeth’ is a play in which a Lord and his Lady come into supreme power through acts of injustice and despicable inhumanities. In the play Macbeth there is no main focal theme that overrules the others; the play however has several underlying themes, namely there are important themes i.e. good and evil (like ying and yang), greed and power, guilt and conscience, fear, ambition – this leads to the murder of other people illustrating to the reader that even the most sane of people can result to character diminishing methods to get what they want. These particular themes are the most prominent and when closely looked at, it can help to understand characters and meanings behind the play. The theme of ambition is very important in this play, and it is obvious that Macbeth is the most ambitious closely followed by Lady Macbeth, the witches and their prophecies add to the couples great expectations, unfortunately for them they get all the power however as comeuppance for there wrong doings they are not happy and they become guilt ridden with the darkness that devours away their sanity.

Many philosophers used to believe that men and women were created for different purposes, women have always been seen as the inferior sex and some of these stereotypes still remain today. Women during Elizabethan-Jacobean England were far less independent than women of today. Women weren’t as important as men, they were neglected regardless of age and educational standards, England then was a very patriarchal society, and it was a man’s world. The only woman recognized from that period was Queen Elizabeth I, she had it all, beauty, power and intelligence. Women were expected to marry at young ages, make children and do domestic work. Women were seen as ...

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...0 “Out, damned spot! Out, I say”, she has become what she feared Macbeth would become, a withering fool exposing their heinous crimes. She thought water would clear their deeds yet now she contradicts herself saying, Act 5 Sc 1 line 43 “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”. She replays aloud what happened the night of Duncan’s death, instructing Macbeth to ‘wash his hands, put on your night-gown..’. The doctor cannot cure her, there is no redemption for her, no coming back, ‘what’s done is done’, she will have to bear it but she can’t and we learn that she has killed herself. Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a mental case, she has become weak and fragile, she can’t cope, and Shakespeare reminds us by using Lady Macbeth that whatever wrong you do, it will always come back to you no matter how clear you think your conscience may be.