Similarities Between Iago And Lady Macbeth

Both Lady Macbeth and Iago feel they lack control, and both summon evil beings to help them gain control. This is a lot more of an active approach than the manipulation mentioned earlier. Lady Macbeth summons multiple spirits: "Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here“. The words "mortal thoughts" could refer to Lady Macbeth’s conscience. Lady Macbeth summons the spirits that make humans feel and associate with others. She commands the spirits to “unsex” her. In other words, she wants to be stripped of her femininity. 11th century England strongly believed that women were mentally inferior to men. Women were supposed to be the only ones able to exhibit ‘weak’ emotions, like sorrow, and conscience. Lady Macbeth clearly does not want to have any such feelings stand in her way to achieving her goal. She would feel that she does not have any control because she is a woman and was expected by society to be weak. She then asks to be “unsexed”. This would allow her to be strong, would strip her of anything that could stand in her way. It also shows how much dedicated she is to gaining control. She is willing to sacrifice the human part of her for the path to victory to become clear. Iago similarly says "Hell and night must bring

Similar to the point made above, both of the antagonists have a desire for control. Lady Macbeth asks evil spirits to "Thick up [her] blood and clog [her] veins". She wants her veins to clog up so nothing can pass through, especially not remorse. She would rather die than feel remorse. Lady Macbeth is therefore willing to drop the part that makes her human for more power. "Make thick my blood" also suggests that she wants her wounds to heal over quickly. As said, 11th century England was a patriarchal society. this meant women were stereotypically thought of as being weak, and that men were stronger. Lady Macbeth seems to believe that she, too, was weak. She wishes to become stronger, like men around her. [EXPAND