Lady Macbeth as a Fiend Essay

English

Assessment B

At the end of the play Malcolm speaks of Lady Macbeth as Macbeths fiend like queen.

Do you think this is a fair assessment of Lady Macbeth?

Shakespeare's Macbeth was written in 1606 and it wasn't first published until 1623, by First Folio a collection of Shakespeare's work. Of course there are many differences between the Shakespeare's Macbeth and the Mac Beth who ruled Scotland almost a millennium ago. Modern sources suggest the picture Shakespeare paints of Scotland in 1044 is based on rumours and the little they knew of the it in 1606.

Shakespeare does not seek to retell the little knowledge he had of the history of The Real Macbeth instead he creates his own view of the man. In the true course of history Banquo helped to kill Duncan, but Shakespeare couldn't write this as James I was Banquo's descendant and the one thing Shakespeare did not want to do was offend the king. Instead Shakespeare used the play to flatter James, by commenting on how good of a solider he was and how he remained loyal to his country and his King despite temptation

I think that Lady Macbeth can be described as a fiend like queen, as there are many scenes in which we see her wicked side. In her attempt to persuade her waveriry husband with Duncan's murder she declares "I have given suck and know

How tender tis to love the babe that milks me:

Have pluckd my nipple from his boneless gums

And dashd the brains out, had I so sworn.

This shows us vivid images of how cold she could be and to an Elizabethan audience this would have been atrocious, even so to a modern audience today it still leaves disturbing thoughts in our mind of a woman's capacity for cruelty to her own child. It also shows us that Lady Macbeth, would have kept her promise and she uses this as a tool against Macbeth, calling him a coward, as he is backing out of a promise that he made to his wife.

This also shows us that she is willing to do anything to be Queen and to take her place on the throne even though it is rightfully Malcolm's. Throughout the play we witness the evolving relationship between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, In the early scenes we sense a romance and strong bonding between them. Although as the play develops we realise that Macbeth is truly capable of taking matters in to his own hands.

As Lady Macbeth reads her husbands letter in the Act I scene 5 we see how the love between them is very strong, Macbeth calls his wife "my dearest partner of greatness, this is a sign of love and this is not a once of, Macbeth consistently, relates to his wife as his dearest love ect. This shows us his interpretation of her and how we can relate to the fact that she may have two sides of a personality.

..Had he not resembled

My father as he slept, I had donet.

Give me the daggers. .

..tis the eye of childhood

That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed

Ill gild the faces of the grooms withal,

For it must seem their guilt.