LADY MACBETH ACT 1 SCENE 5 Lady Macbeth

LADY MACBETH

ACT 1 SCENE 5 • Lady Macbeth is a woman of great determination. • As far as she is concerned he will be King "and shalt be what thou art promised", she is impatient for Macbeth's return so that she can persuade him to fulfilling his ambition.

ACT 1 SCENE 5 • She knows Macbeth well. • His "nature is too full of the milk of human kindness" which she sees as a weakness because he may not grasp opportunities when they present themselves. • She knows he is ambitious but lacks the evil that should go with it "art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it".

ACT 1 SCENE 5 • She knows Macbeth would not cheat, "wouldst not play false" yet sees the weakness in him that would accept gains got from dishonesty "and yet wouldst wrongly win". • This is his moral weakness - he would accept the rewards of wrong doing as long as he does not have to participate actively.

ACT 1 SCENE 5 • She has no moral reservations about murder and is decisive about it. In her mind, the King's arrival at their castle will signal "the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements". • It is merely "business" to be done "This night's great business" - cold & calculating. • So that nothing will obstruct her plan, she is prepared to reject her human nature and all her capacity for feeling "Unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the top-full of direst cruelty". "make thick my blood" & "take my milk for gal".

ACT 1 SCENE 5 • She is shrewd in advising Macbeth to "look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it". • Appearances hides the ugly reality of ambition. She is the mistress of hypocrisy. • She takes an active role in planning the murder: "leave all the rest to me"

ACT 1 SCENE 6 • Lady Macbeth is "the innocent flower" that hides the "serpent" as she welcomes King Duncan. • Without any hesitation she heaps courtesies and gratitude on Duncan’s head.

ACT 1 SCENE 7 ACT 2 SCENE 2 ACT 3 SCENE 4 ACT 5 SCENE 1