Lady Macbeth Flashcards
(5 cards)
Lady Macbeth rejects femininity, associating it with weakness and compassion. By calling on the supernatural, she aligns herself with dark forces, showing her ambition and willingness to embrace evil. The phrase “direst cruelty” suggests she wants to become as merciless as possible, foreshadowing the cold-hearted manipulation she will use on Macbeth.
“Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty!”
“Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.”
A metaphor for deception, this advice to Macbeth encapsulates her cunning and ruthlessness. The contrast between the innocent flower and the serpent (a biblical reference to Satan) highlights how she believes power is achieved through manipulation, not honour. This idea becomes central to the play, as Macbeth learns to disguise his evil beneath a false exterior.
“A little water clears us of this deed: how easy is it then!”
After Duncan’s murder, Lady Macbeth dismisses Macbeth’s guilt, showing her practical and unemotional nature. The irony is that while blood (guilt) cannot be washed away metaphorically, she still believes that power and control will protect her. Later, her descent into madness contradicts this confidence, proving that the crime cannot be so easily forgotten.
The phrase “stop up” uses forceful, almost violent language, suggesting she wants to physically seal off her emotions — showing how far she is willing to go to pursue power.
• “Access and passage” refers to natural channels through which feelings like remorse and pity would flow. By wanting to close them, Lady Macbeth wishes to deny her own humanity and transform herself into a being driven purely by ambition.
• The language evokes imagery of unnatural blockage, highlighting the supernatural corruption she seeks — cutting herself off from natural feelings is not human but monstrous, aligning her with the forces of evil.
• Shakespeare presents ambition here as something that demands the destruction of conscience.
• For a Jacobean audience, Lady Macbeth’s deliberate attempt to suppress moral instincts would have been terrifying, as it shows her breaking the natural order both internally (within herself) and externally (through regicide).
• This moment foreshadows her eventual downfall: though she tries to suppress guilt now, it later overwhelms her, leading to madness and death.
“Stop up the access and passage to remorse”
• The phrase “come, thick night” is an imperative command, emphasizing her control over the supernatural forces she is summoning. This reflects her ruthless ambition, as she seeks to cloak her actions in darkness and murderous secrecy.
• The metaphor of the “dunnest smoke of hell” links the night with hellish, infernal imagery. The use of “dunnest” suggests a deep, oppressive darkness that is suffocating and impenetrable, symbolizing her desire to be enveloped in an evil, malevolent atmosphere that will shield her from the consequences of her ambition.
• By requesting the night to be as thick as the smoke of hell, Lady Macbeth associates her murderous intentions with damnation and chaos, reinforcing the corruption of her soul. She wishes to be consumed by evil so that she can achieve her goals without fear or remorse.
• The use of supernatural imagery reflects her belief that to achieve power, one must enter a realm beyond natural law, where morality is sacrificed in pursuit of ambition.
• In a Jacobean context, where the idea of divine justice was significant, Lady Macbeth’s invocation of hellish forces would have been seen as a blasphemous act. Shakespeare highlights how the disruption of natural order (through ambition and supernatural intervention) leads to chaos and moral decay.
“Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell”
