Lady Macbeth The Personification Of The Devil

Lady Macbeth is a complicated, intricate figure. As the play progresses, the way she is portrayed changes dramatically. In Acts One and Two, she is the personification of the devil; unrelenting, motivated by ambition, and functioning with an insatiable purpose to seek greater power. However, we begin to see a crack form in the armour Lady Macbeth has built to become the dominant, cunning woman portrayed to the audience in the earlier acts throughout the subsequent acts. We watch how the magnitude of her crimes affects and alters her so profoundly that by Act five, she is entirely broken and just a shadow of her former self.

In Act One Scene 5, Lady Macbeth receives a letter from Macbeth. The letter describes Macbeth's encounter with the witches

Her speech that she would "announce to the king that I would participate in his pleasure" demonstrates this. This reveals that she must ask a servant whether she is permitted to see her husband, demonstrating that the ironic gap between them is caused by their own dishonest ambition. This wedge had a huge influence on Lady Macbeth since she relied on her husband and used him as a conduit throughout their activities. Now she questions him, "Why do you keep alone?" She adds that she only had Macbeth to support them since she could not have children. She is getting increasingly isolated, and her anxiety is starting to affect her. This allows the audience to perceive a slight chink in her armour, as she indicates that she needs him more than she actually does, and she demonstrates a fragility that suggests she is no longer the diabolical queen we witnessed in her previous deeds in the play. We witness how much the power relations between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have shifted. Macbeth does not inform Lady Macbeth of his plan. This gives the impression of how Lady Macbeth is no longer in control of Macbeths and that now he has matured to be much more responsible and now in command of the operation. Macbeth refers to Lady Macbeth as chuck. The use of the noun "chuck" to describe Lady Macbeth is more condescending. This contrasts greatly from his previous description of "my dearest partner of greatness", which had connotations of strength and the noun "partner" shows that Macbeth viewed Lady Macbeth as an equal, which would have been unprecedented at the time. Women were considered to be of lesser importance and most marriages were for power rather than love. However, the utilization of the noun "partner" suggests that the association between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth was truly romantic. This implies that the bond's alterations are more drastic because they once loved each other, now Macbeth