Lady Macbeth Comparison Essay

There was a common saying, “Behind every great man there's a great woman”. The men, Macbeth and Winston Smith in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and George Orwell’s 1984 may not be considered as the “great man” however, both Lady Macbeth and Julia are good examples that can be presented as the “great woman” behind the men. Both Lady Macbeth and Julia do an excellent job of pretending to be someone who they are not, they are not only affecting the men in their lives to rethink their previous position but also have a bad ending accompanied with physical and psychological issues. First of all, Lady Macbeth and Julia are the main female characters in Macbeth and 1984. Both of them pretend well as being someone who they are not, which finagles other characters

Lady Macbeth negatively guides lots of Macbeth’s behaviour, for instance, when Macbeth hesitates to commit murder, she repeatedly questions his manhood until he feels that he has to do it to prove himself as the man that Lady Macbeth always mentioned; it is also one of the reasons that lead to Macbeth’s downfall, as well as the deaths of the other innocent characters in the text. “[Macbeth does] Like the poor cat i' th' adage? ”(1.7.46) says Lady Macbeth, when Macbeth is hesitating whether kill Duncan or not while he’s in Macbeth’s castle. Lady Macbeth describes Macbeth as a poor cat from old stories to satire Macbeth’s indecision. She degrades Macbeth’s manhood as he doesn’t have the dare to act the way he desires, to pursue the power and glory that he wants. Macbeth replies that he only dares to do what is proper for a man to do. However later in the text, Macbeth’s actions go crazy, he cares his family no more, as well as his friends and subordinates. Lady Macbeth seems to know that she needs to push Macbeth into committing murder, or Macbeth will just let nature take its course. At some points, she wishes that she was not a woman so that she could do the things that man could do by herself, such as the murder, so she won’t see Macbeth lacks in the power of decision and his overtaken by misgivings and fear. In addition, Julia encourages

Lady Macbeth has been suffering from illness of sleepwalking through the castle later in the text, she desperately tries to wash away the invisible blood of those innocent people that have died because of the wrong doing that she commits from the beginning. Even it’s not handled by herself, however, when the sense of guilt comes out from her deep heart, she is still unable to sustain the guilty feelings which causes her sensitivity becomes weak; and she apparently kills herself which shows that she can’t deal with the legacy of the crimes of those innocent people. “This disease [mental illness] is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.”(5.1.58-60) says the psychological doctor after he saw Lady Macbeth’s self-destructive behavior. Same as Julia, instead of being young and flexible, she becomes pale and stiff. She has a scar on her face which is from the torture of the Party, the torture may involve awful facial cutting and damages. “Her [Julia’s] face was sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden by the hair, across her forehead and temple...her body felt like [a corpse].”(Orwell 288) when Winston meets her again at the near end of the text. Julia’s torture was very similar to Winston's, because it completely changed her personality. When Winston sees her, Julia