Act 1 Scene 5 Commentary 


Lady Macbeth is introduced to the audience as she reads a letter from Macbeth that recounts his meeting with the witches. This shows the trust Macbeth places in his wife. He doesn’t mention anything aboutmurder in his letter, but Lady Macbeth immediately assumes that this is the only way of gaining ‘the golden round’ (the crown).


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LadyMacbeth worries that her husband is ‘too full o’ the milk of human kindness’ and that he may not have the murderous resolve to carry out an assassination. She sets herself up as a manipulator and clearly expresses her desire to persuade Macbeth with the phrase, ‘Hie thee hither / That Imay pourmy spirits in thine ear’. Her intentions recall themethods employed by the witches.


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Lady Macbeth dramatically and shockingly calls on evil spirits to ‘Stop up the access and passage to remorse’. This adds to the play’s focus on supernatural evil. The fact that Lady Macbeth has to invoke evil spirits shows that she is not innately evil but is willing to give up her soul to acquire power.


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The appeal to evil spirits to ‘unsex’ her shows how Lady Macbeth equates manliness with violence. She seeks to suppress any ‘feminine qualities’ that may prevent her aiding in the murder of Duncan.


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Lady Macbeth’s ambition outweighs her moral scruples and she celebrates the ability to act without guilt or regret: ‘That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, / Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, / To cry 'Hold, hold!'


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In this scene Lady Macbeth seems to take the lead and dominates her husband. She instructs Macbeth to ‘put / This night's great business into my dispatch’. Later in the play we see how it is Lady Macbeth who plans the details of Duncan’s murder.


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This scene also points to the relationship between power and false appearances. LadyMacbeth instructs her husband to ‘look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't.’This echoes Duncan’s earlier comment about the former Thane of Cawdor: ‘There's no art / To find the mind's construction in the face’.


Questions


1. What is your impression of Lady Macbeth from this scene? 2. (a) What is Lady Macbeth’s view of her husband? (b) How is this view contradicted in Act 1, Scene 2?


3. In Act 1, Scene 4, Macbeth says, ‘Stars, hide your fires! / Let not light see my black and deep desires: / The eye wink at the hand’. Write down a quotation from Lady Macbeth in this scene that expresses a similar idea.


4. Why do you think Lady Macbeth asks evil spirits to ‘unsex’ her?


5. What does Lady Macbeth mean when she tells Macbeth to ‘look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't’?


6. How would you describe the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? Refer to this scene in your answer.


7. Imagine you are directing this scene. What advice would you give to the actor playing Lady Macbeth? Consider facial expressions, body language, tone of voice and the character’s motivation. Refer to key lines in your response.


25


Macbeth


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