Why Is Lady Macbeth's Unsex Me Here

My favourite interpretation of Lady Macbeth’s “unsex me here” was the performance by the Judi Dench, the first actress. This was my favourite because it was the closest match to what I had imagined in my head when we read the scene, which was the fact that she was evil in nature, since she was plotting to kill the king, but she didn’t want anyone to find out about it. Dench signified her evil intent by talking in a slight whisper and by crouching down, this not only showed that what she had to say was important (since we have to listen closer to hear her and she has a shift in posture) but it also portrayed Lady Macbeth’s fear that people would find out what she was plotting, therefore she is whispering and crouching down. In addition to this,

I liked the fact that she is stretching her hand out almost as if trying to summon some spirits because she is trying to talk to spirits, asking them to fill her with cruelty and help her go through with the murder while keeping it a secret. Also she is very active, and performs a lot of body language such as crouching down, pacing around and holding her head. This helps us connect with Dench’s portrayal of the character and tells us how she wants us to see Lady Macbeth.
My least favourite interpretation of the “unsex me here” speech was the performance by the second actress. This was my least favourite because of the fact that she was not very emotional nor was she very active. For most of her performance she was standing fairly still with the only body language she was preforming being touching her breasts, looking up and closing her eyes. This lack of action in her performance meant that I paid more attention to the words she was saying; however they had less of a powerful effect on me compared to the other actresses who were supporting their words with meaningful body language. Another aspect of her performance that I disliked was the fact that she was smiling during some parts of it. I did not like this because it did not necessarily look like an evil smile; therefore it disconnected me from her speech more than brining me further into it because of the sudden happiness introduced into a more or less evil scene.