Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth

1. ACT 1

   • "pour my spirtis in thine ear"
   • "chastise with the valour of my tongue"
   • "Glamis thou art, and Cawdor and shalt be what thou art promised"
   • "too full of the milk of human kindness"
   • "Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts unsex me here" (imperatives show power determination ect)
   • "Direst cruelty"
   • "take my milk for gall" (subverts gender stereotypes"
   • "Look like th'innocent flower but be the serpent unde't" (encourages duplicity biblical symbolism of evil and temptation)
   • "Green and pale" "thou live a coward" directly challenges Macbeths masculinity
   • " have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out" (graphic imagery emphasises her unnatural desires and manipulation and well as subverting maternal stereotype)

2. Key themes she introduces

   • Ambition (more ambitions than Macbeth, eventually destroys her is the message of the play)
   • Evil and the supernatural (parallel to witches)
   • Appearance and Reality (manipulates Macbeth to commit evil deeds)
   • Subverts gender Stereotypes Context links and also the Macbeths relationship is unheard of in the Jacobean era men and women wouldn't share business women were expected to be submissive and pure"
   • Manipulation
   • Guilt and insanity she has visions later on in the play supernatural signs of guilt.

3. Act 2

   • "Had he not resembled my father as he slept I had done't" (first signs of weakness she is not free of a conscience"
   • "Go get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hand" imperatives demanding Macbeth to man up and maintain there act of duplicity and innocence very ironic her insanity is based on washing her own sins away later on in the play.
   • " My hands of your colour but I shame to wear a heart so white" she is dominat and evil she admits they are both responsible for the murder however Macbeths failure to cope with these actions disgusts and disappoints her. Jacobean context men were supposed to be strong and brave Macbeth looks weak and is further shown to be a coward through "white"

4. Act 3

   • "What's done is done" no remorse wants Macbeth to move on
   • "What's to be done?" concerned he husband is now committing evil of his own accord because of her manipulation and poisoning.
   • "Displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting with most admired disorder." she rebukes Macbeths insanity he has caused trouble and suspicion around them trys to mainting there duplicity as it is fracturing

5. Act 5

   • "slumberly agitation" (doctor) suggests they are guilty through this oxymoron, natural state of sleep has been disturbed.
   • " Look how she rubs her hands" visual image of lady Macbeths guilt contrast to earlier when "little water washes us of this deed"
   • "Out dammed spot! out I say!" Repetition of "out" and short exclamatory sentence she is desperate to remove her guilt her soul is tainted with this evil deed.