Exploring the character of Lady Macbeth

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 5 of Macbeth and

then answer the question that follows. Note that in your
exam, the extract will be shorter and the focus of the
question will be more specific. This activity will help you
prepare for any questions on Lady Macbeth.

At this point in the play Lady Macbeth is speaking. She has just
received the news that King Duncan will be spending the night
at her castle.

Starting with this speech, explain what your impressions

are of Lady Macbeth here and elsewhere in the play.

LADY MACBETH Give him tending;

He brings great news.

Exit Messenger.

The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. 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! make thick my blood;

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

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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 Exploring the character of Lady Macbeth
Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Enter MACBETH.

Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!

Thy letters have transported me beyond

This ignorant present, and I feel now

The future in the instant.

MACBETH My dearest love,

Duncan comes here to-night.

LADY MACBETH And when goes hence? 60

MACBETH To-morrow, as he purposes.

LADY MACBETH O, never

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men

May read strange matters. To beguile the time,

Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under't. He that's coming

Must be provided for: and you shall put

This night's great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come 70

Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

MACBETH We will speak further.

LADY MACBETH Only look up clear;

To alter favour ever is to fear:
Leave all the rest to me.

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 Exploring the character of Lady Macbeth
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Some points you might choose to include:

 The connotations of the raven in lines 39-41.

 Use of the adjective ‘fatal’ to describe Duncan’s entrance to Dunsinane castle. What
does it convey about Lady Macbeth’s immediate thoughts and reactions to Macbeth’s
letter?

 What Lady Macbeth invites the ‘murdering ministers’ to do to her body (on lines 42-51)
and why she requests their assistance.

 The fact she imagines committing the regicide herself in this soliloquy: she refers to the
weapon as ‘my keen knife’ on line 53. However, she does not later commit the crime
herself.

 Links with Act 2 Scene 2, when she admits to the audience in an aside why she is not
committing the crime. Explain what this private admission to the audience reveals about
her.

 The conversation between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth (lines 58-75) which conveys the
dynamics of their relationship to the audience. Explain who the dominant partner is here
and give evidence to prove how this dominance is conveyed.

 Links with Act 3 Scene 2, where we first see Lady Macbeth as queen. In an aside to the
audience at the opening of this scene, explain what feelings she privately admits to, now
that her ambition to be queen has been fulfilled.

 Links with our final impressions of Lady Macbeth, in Act 5 Scene 1. Write about the
significance of having ‘light by her continually’ and how this links to her desire to be
wrapped in ‘the dunnest smoke of Hell’ when first contemplating Duncan’s murder. Also
explain the irony of her constantly rubbing her hands, given her comment to Macbeth on
the night of Duncan’s murder: ‘A little water clears us of this deed.’

Key words you could use:

soliloquy audience impression initial admission significant

fiendish determined callous ironic ambitious aside

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