Lady Macbeth's Monologue

This is the monologue made by Lady Macbeth before she goes to kill him in Scene I; which she never does as Macbeth does it instead. This text could be interpreted a number of ways; one could be that of sheer malice and forethought, where Lady Macbeth is the cunning and dangerous mistress that she is. Another view of the events could be that Lady Macbeth is scared, rightfully so as she is going to kill the King; but nevertheless, she is not as ruthless as she may seem on first impressions.

Lady Macbeth is the ruthless wife of Macbeth, who although ambitious, does not have the necessary 'grit' to get the job done. The monologue made by Macbeth's wife before she goes to kill Duncan shows a ruthless woman, who is calling to the spirits to take

away her womanly femininity; relating to the negative stigma that girls cannot do 'mans work'. From this passage, she is sure that Duncan will be dead, for certain she states that there will be the "fatal entrance of Duncan", preparing the audience for the murder scene. The Lady craves the "direst cruelty", to be the ruthless woman she dreams about, she wants to "stop up the access and passage to remorse", the passage that she does not want or need to do the job she needs to do.

She wants to shake her "fell purpose", the other ambitions in her life that may be hindered by such an act. The "thick night" is summoned by Lady Macbeth, she desires that it fills her up, giving her the ruthlessness she needs to do the task, the 'grit', the malice; she needs whatever drives the soldiers in war to plunge their swords into the enemy - the manly violence that accompanies testosterone. This is what Lady Macbeth is asking for, she has declared Duncan's death and she needs whatever doubt in her to cease to exist. She does not want anyone to

see, not even God, "nor heaven peep through the blanket of dark", she wants to be surrounded in evil to do this grievous task.

She knows that only divine intervention could stop her from performing such a task, she pleads with heaven not to see this and cry "Hold!" Aside from that, she has everything, she is ready to do it; the exercise she was performing was almost the opposite of the calming methods people use before exams; it was a pep rally, all for herself to get her ready for battle. Lady Macbeth is a soldier, throughout the entire novel she is guiding her ambitious husband, being the ruthless side that he does not have.

On the other hand, Lady Macbeth being a ruthless murderer is not the only way that this passage can be seen; in the end, she could be scared. As seen later on in the play, Lady Macbeth has a mental breakdown; she stars sleepwalking and having nightmares and night terrors which eventually leads to her suicide. It is a plausible way to look at this section of the play as a cry for help. Lady Macbeth needs the spirits to "tend on mortal thoughts", she is scared, she knows what she needs to do but her humanity is getting in the way, she wants the spirits to do everything for

her. The Lady does not want to do any of this, she knows she is not full of what it takes and is asking the spirits to make her full of whatever it is, do what they need to do to her to make her a ruthless person - something she isn't. She needs to stop the access to the "passage of remorse", it is too much for her to handle as is shown by later breakdown. Lady Macbeth knows herself and she knows she cannot do this; luckily she doesn't have to and Macbeth does do it for her - maybe that is the divine intervention she was looking for. The Lady knows that she is a woman, she should not have to do this sort of dirty work for the men, they are the soldiers, they are the killers; she is not exactly asking the spirits to "come to [her] woman's breasts", she is informing them that she is a woman and that this is not a job for her - especially if she has to change everything about herself through some supernatural intervention of spirits as she knows this is not the sort of person she is. She calls on the "thick night", so no one can see what she is doing - not even herself, she is getting the spirits to take over her body, fill her with their presence and essence, but she still does not want to see the act; she pleads with heaven to not "peek" at what she is about to do. The prayer to God to not cry out "Hold!" Is almost a cry for him to do so; it is the simple idea in human psychology that if people are told that they should not do something, then they will probably do it, we as humans know that when we tell someone not to do something that we are secretly telling them to do it. Lady Macbeth is not ruthless by nature, she is scared - she wants herself to be filled with a darkness, to be possessed; unfortunately once the possession ends and the spirit is released, all she is left with is images of that fateful night and she drives herself to insanity and suicide. When Lady Macbeth makes the statement "shake my fell purpose" in this instance, she is asking the spirits to stop her, to shake her world; she needs them to stop her from what she is about to do, to shake her up. She realizes what she is about to do is horrible and she needs to stop it, she wants to become possessed, to not feel it at all - she needs to just not do it. The horrors that await her are more than she can handle, this is evident in later lines in the play, she gets haunted by everything that happens; nothing is ever enough.
What Lady Macbeth meant by this is not entirely clear. She could have been a ruthless killer that craved the throne and power so much that she wanted the spirits to fill her up with evil and make her into such a monster. She may also have been a scared girl, who needed supernatural, divine intervention to complete a task she knew that she could just not do. In the end, Lady Macbeth drives herself to insanity, which could have been done by either one of these because in the end she is still responsible for the murder of many people; encouraging her husband to be the ruthless person that she wants to be. The spirits gave her a vessel, almost exactly what she wanted; her husband does all the dirty work for her, everything she does not want to do, he takes care of it all, it is her ideas implemented in what happens. It may have even been the spirits that Lady Macbeth calls upon that shows the vision of the knife in front of Macbeth's face, possessing him to go and kill Duncan for her; that is the divine intervention.