Fair Is Foul And Foul Is Fair Analysis

“Fair is foul and foul is fair” is a recurring aphorism in the story of Macbeth. At first, Lady Macbeth appears to be a monster, a “fiend-like queen” even; but through the vagaries of her character displayed throughout the story, it becomes clear that there is more depth to her afterall. In a sense, Lady Macbeth parallels the witches and their use of ambiguous language with Macbeth, however, while the witches aim to corrupt Macbeth while pretending to support him, it is in fact Lady Macbeth that desperately attempts to keep him from succumbing further to darkness out of love. Unfortunately for her, she does not have the power to hold back Macbeth, for she is only a woman in an era dominated by man. All she can do is try her best to keep them

Lady Macbeth sees that if Macbeth does not take the crown at his first chance, his deep and dark desires shall haunt him until he eventually does something risky and irrational to become king. Lady Macbeth cannot allow her husband to put their safety in jeopardy, so to ensure that they remain vindicated; Lady Macbeth is forced to aid Macbeth and orchestrate King Duncan’s assassination. Here Lady Macbeth has created a false face of strong and masculine qualities to make it possible for her to aid her husband.

What Lady Macbeth does then, is simply fulfill her role as a loyal wife in a world where her life is dictated by Macbeth and his actions. She is afraid of creating anarchy in the natural order of the universe by disrupting her duty as a wife. Her place is at Macbeth’s side in order to keep society in harmony and avoid any contention. As Macbeth’s devote follower then, she has been trapped by his decisions and is forced morally to remain true to him. As Lily Campbell suggests, Lady Macbeth’s worries reflect Aristotle’s theory of fear, that: “We often fear the enmity and anger of those who have power to do us harm”(Campbell 127) and Macbeth has the complete ability as man of the house to harm Lady Macbeth if she were to defy him. The only way Lady Macbeth can bring herself to commit such crimes however, is to call upon spirits to “unsex her” (1.5.31) and ensure “That my knife see not the wound it makes” (1.5.51) to take away her womanly characteristics

Lady Macbeth slowly begins to be separated from the cruel plans that Macbeth makes and has a more passive tone to his decisions as Macbeth’s character changes from loyal and irresolute to commanding and dangerous. Her influence is no longer needed nor accepted and she retires into the background as Macbeth starts referring to her with less important names like “dearest chuck” (3.2.49). From this power transition, it becomes apparent that Macbeth has completely taken control and has conformed to general social status at the time. More confrontation occurs as well when Lady Macbeth tells her husband not to kill Banquo: `You must leave this’ (3.2.38) she says, but he does it anyway. Macbeth has moved past any point of humanity but there is nothing Lady Macbeth can do, and all the while her remorse grows. She has lost the ability to rest easy and is constantly thinking about the deeds