Juxtaposition In Macbeth

In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth he portrays Lady Macbeth as a demented power –hungry unorthodox Elizabethan woman that takes the degrading tradition of Elizabethan women and completely neglects that belief but throughout this masterpiece that façade proves to be feeble and her true colours are revealed.

In Act 1 Scene, 5 Shakespeare writes ‘Nor heaven break through the blanket of the dark.' This can show juxtaposition because blankets are associated with things that are pleasant and provide comfort and now they are in conjunction with darkness this shows that lady Macbeth can turn things that are soft and meant for babies into things that are wrong and evil. This is a demonstration of how she is strong because a woman from her time would have never been so verbally aggressive or so willing to push her husband into action. Furthermore the metaphor displays that she finds comfort in the darkness like she desires it and if it were to escape from her she would feel fragile and as a result of

this the guilt would be discovered the guilt that has been lurking in the darkness inside her and go into a schizophrenic state .On the contrary we see that she says ‘Nor Heaven’ this can propose that with this darkness she’s been given, neither heaven nor anything divine can break her from her dark ways and later in the quote it implies that she is covered with this darkness. All this shows she is strong because she is not afraid to be protected and associated with darkness.
We see the way Lady Macbeth perceives femininity when she says ‘Unsex me here.’ This quote brings me to ponder on the fact that she desires masculinity because Elizabethan women are seen as weak comforting and submissive. This demonstration of a rebellious performance draws me to reason that the purpose of becoming masculine is because she pursues power and in that era she would never be able to achieve that goal if she was just an ordinary Elizabethan woman. Her use of the repeated imperative verbs suggests that she is trying to assert her power to emit her authority over all. Alternatively it could mean that she wants the easy way because if she was completely resilient she would be able to carry this out without changing her gender so this highlights the minor flaw that’s can be interpreted from her dialogue but is starting to be revealed without her knowing. The critic Samuel Johnson stated the Lady Macbeth is ‘merely detested’. Undeniably Lady Macbeth is hated because she uses manipulation and lies to get people to do her dirty work and once this is done she blames other people this is a demonstration of the traits that people detest. However, he clearly does not see how AC Bradley sees that she can be inspiring to people because of the way she abandoned her degrading culture and becoming the power behind Macbeth’s throne.
In Act 1 Scene, 7 the quote ‘Make thick my blood/stop up’th access and passage to remorse.’ This may confuse you making you think that by her saying this it means that she wants counterfeit blood that has no gaps so the guilt can enter her body and make her breakdown. Instead, it actually means that she is scared of what will happen and if she was so strong she wouldn't be asking because she would have already had it and wouldn’t be asking. Moreover, she has no doubt that she would be in a vulnerable state and she would go into a chapter of pure guilt and do something rash resulting in her own self-destruction. This imagery in this quote is one of the prime suspects she utters that exposes that she is weak and this is just a persona she is putting on like a costume without her

Lady Macbeth quotes ‘while it was smiling in my face, have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash’d the brains out.

‘The use of this emotive language such as ‘dash’s the brains out ‘displays that if she were to make a promise she would defiantly keep it and this is one of her many uses manipulation and she is saying this to make Macbeth feel pathetic because she is a woman and she is able to keep a promise and Macbeth is man and he cannot even keep a promise this is a perfect indication that she is the power behind Macbeth’s power. The use of the word’ dash’d’ indicates that she is strong because she’s not just putting the babe down she is heavily propelling it to the floor almost rebuking something Macbeth can’t do. This can be a reference to the theatre actress Alex Kingston as she represented Lady Macbeth in a play she said her character freaked her out and I can certainly agree with this statement since she is talking about smashing her baby’s head on the

floor.
In Act 5 Scene Lady Macbeth uttered these words ‘Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?’ The Lady Macbeth we saw in the first act seemed to have had a stronger hold on herself, but now it seem that she's got some of King Duncan blood on her hands she cannot take it. Lady Macbeth now sees permanent blood stains on her hands and slowly plummets into insanity as this is happening that strong persona and charade is starting to deteriorate and the real Lady Macbeth start to show herself a normal Elizabethan woman who tried to neglect her culture but it seemed to catch up with her and now the repercussion of that is she’s in a phase of pure lunacy and will surely lead to an early demise.
Lady Macbeth says pronounces that ‘Hell is murky.’ Her saying that implies that she’s familiar with the darkness hell emits. I believe this suggests that what she and Macbeth have done have created their own hell they could say, but it's not eternal torment but rather eternal guilt that will slowly eat at the mind until there is nothing left. In this quote, she is referring to the death of King Duncan caused by her and Macbeth and because of this that's where she'll go. However in the start of the play we saw that she would call on dark sprits and be protected by them but once again this is an exhibition of her true self a normal Elizabethan woman.
At the start of this play we saw that Lady Macbeth was a fearless , Inspiring woman who abolished the stereotype calling upon dark sprits and feeling protected by these dark spirits wanting to be a man and being the influence over Macbeth killing King Duncan and taking the throne. However later on in the play we see that strong personality weaken as she is driven to madness to the point that she implies that she’s created a hell for herself as she compromises her life because of all that blood guilt on her hand. After this, we see that she was defiantly lustrous for power but her goal was too big for just an Elizabethan woman and those dreams lead to her paying the ultimate price