She had the total control over her husband in plotting the murder of Duncan and chiding her husband for not acting more like a man; yet, despite this participation, she seems to be the main motivation for the revealing of the Macbeth’s stand in the usurpation of the throne:
Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.(Macbeth 1.5.23-28) Next to this part some of her speeches for ambition of power portray her as an unnatural character that almost certify her as the fourth witch of the play. During her persuasion her cruelty and tendency for violence is intentionally brought to light when she claims even to kill her own child for what she has promised to do:
I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the
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This perversion of one of the most sacred acts of motherhood enhances the horror of the length she would cross to achieve her goal. However, it also implies that considering Lady Macbeth as merely a brutal, malicious woman stirring her husband to slaughter a poor old king- is a misevaluation and understatement of this character.
In Defense of Lady Macbeth
An attempt to investigate who actually planned the murder of Duncan, can be referred to the findings of A. C. Bradley in the essay, “When Was the Murder of Duncan First Plotted”, in his Shakespearean Tragedy:
A good many readers probably think that, when Macbeth first met the Witches, he was perfectly innocent; but a much larger number would say that he had already harboured a vaguely guilty ambition, though he had not faced the idea of murder. And I think there can be no doubt that this is the obvious and natural interpretation of the scene. (Bradley,