Evil in Shakespeare's Macbeth - Lady Macbeth as a Second Eve

The Different Faces of Evil - Lady Macbeth as a Second Eve

Natural disasters in newspaper headlines, literature, video games, Hollywood movies, gapers at accidents, TV series in the afternoon - they all prove the our fascination about the evil, about death and violence.

The evil in Macbeth is clearly omnipresent and an almost endless theme for different analysis. The role of Lady Macbeth is interesting on many levels of interpretation, but I shall focus on her way of being evil and her way of interacting with other characters in the play. Lady Macbeth is characterized at least as complex as her husband, although she is not the traditional tragic hero in the play. She doesn't only show the trait of being the evil but also many other, very human, traits.

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Bosheit ist eine Art Delirium und verwirrt den Verstand.

Friedrich II von Preussen

Prüfe das Innere jedes beliebigen Menschen - in jedem wirst du wenigstens einen dunklen Punkt finden, den er verhüllen muss. (Bernick)

Ibsen, Die Stützen der Gesellschaft III

Natural disasters in newspaper headlines, literature, video games, Hollywood movies, gapers at accidents, TV series in the afternoon - they all prove the our fascination about the evil, about death and violence.

The evil in Macbeth is clearly omnipresent and an almost endless theme for different analysis. The role of Lady Macbeth is interesting on many levels of interpretation, but I concentrate on her way of being evil and her way of interacting with other characters in the play. Lady Macbeth is characterized at least as complex as her husband, although she is not the traditional tragic hero in the play. She doesn't only show the trait of being the evil but also many other, very human, traits. Her interaction with Macbeth and the other characters passes on different levels: She plays the charming serpent, she's a perfect strategist and she's probably, before her fall, the most self-confident and straight person in the play. And, she succeeds in achieving even more influence on her husband than the witches. Therefore it is worth to deal with an analysis of her conduct, which will show that she has many faces - though all of them are a sign of her evocation of the evil and, make her to a second Eve in the fall of men.