Macbeth - Discuss the dramatic development of Lady Macbeth
Uploaded by ashchap on Nov 24, 2002
Discuss the dramatic development of Lady Macbeth
Macbeth is a drama written about how a warrior tries to become king through murder and deceit with the help of his wife, and how the consequences of their actions are great. The play is centred around four main themes: evil, death, mental disorders and the supernatural (which are closely linked together). Lady Macbeth shows all of these things and is a very diverse character who slowly develops through the course of the play.
At the beginning of the play, the audience meet the witches and are first introduced to evil and supernatural. Witches were a very controversial subject at the time when Shakespeare wrote the play. This means that the play would be controversial and attract a lot of customers as well as raising thoughts and ideas in the audience's heads. Seeing and hearing the witches early on gets the audience ready for the rest of the play and lets them know what its about. This also tell the audience what the letter means that Lady Macbeth reads out at the beginning of act 1 scene 5.
In act 1 scene 5, where Lady Macbeth is reading the letter from Macbeth, she finds out that Duncan will be coming to stay and thinks that this is a perfect opportunity for her to use her plan to make Macbeth king, it literally falls straight into her lap. ' Messenger: the king comes here to-night'.
During this scene, Lady Macbeth mentions some key words used which show the main themes of the play: 'closest partner' - This means that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have a close relationship and are happy together. 'greatness' - Macbeth is considering his future and what it holds for him. 'metaphysical', 'fate' - Lady Macbeth is mentioning the supernatural, showing that this is a key part o the play. 'Raven' - She is mentioning death, which is another main theme. 'night' - Night could be thought of as evil in the times when the play was performed because dark was related to evil and light to good. 'smoke of hell' - An obvious reference to evil.
When Lady Macbeth has her speech (line 37 to line 57), she is trying to invoke the evil spirits and make her like a man and therefore strong and powerful. 'come you spirits' she is speaking directly to the spirits. 'unsex me here… full of direst cruelty''...