Psychoanalytical Criticism of Macbeth

Psychoanalytical criticism is a form of literary critique, which uses some of the techniques of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of literature. One of the more prevalent Psychoanalytical theorists after Freud was Jacques Lacan. In his text, “The Signification of the Phallus,” asserts that the idea of both sexes are based on the male “being” and the female “having” the phallus, and these two differences determine the relations between the sexes while also bringing them together. For Lacan, the phallus for males represents power, authority, and desire while for females the phallus signifies lack of power and agency (182).

Another important text by Lacan is “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason since Freud.” This text explains that language does not shape our identities and desire so much as our identities and desires are acquired from language (Richter 1046). Lacan explains that symbolic stage consists of the Other and the Other is not complete because there is a lack. This concept suggests that there is always a signifier missing from the collection of signifiers composed by the Other. Lacan then asserts that the subject is now ruled by language, and this symbolic discourse forms the structures of cultural and social identities (Richter 1046). Lacan also describes the use of metonymy and this is a mode of symbolization in which one thing is signified by another that is associated with it, but it is not from the same class. Moreover, metonymy is characterized by lack, oppression, and servitude (Berry 107).

Lacan’s psychoanalytic theories can be readily applied to the character Lady Macbeth in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. When Macbeth was written in the beginning of the seventeenth century, masculine t...

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...hers and husbands. Although Lady Macbeth believes she has convinced Macbeth to kill Duncan, she resolves to carry out the deed herself. When Lady Macbeth arrives at the king’s chambers, she cannot execute the king. Lady Macbeth expressly rejects the masculine power that would allow her to wield a dagger. While she makes a case for killing Duncan, even declaring that "had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had done't" (2.2.12-13). According to Chamberlain, “Lady Macbeth ultimately refuses masculine authority. What she craves instead is an alternative gender identity, one that will allow her to slip free of the emotional as well as cultural constraints governing women” (79). Furthermore, Lady Macbeth’s submissive gender role plays an important part in her failure to kill Duncan because she sees the king as the ultimate symbol of male authority.