This essay aims to answer the question, How far does Shakespeare present Lady Macbeth as immoral? This comes with a color-coded key on how to write a strong Macbeth essay with detailed, rich analysis, and assessment objectives highlighted in the essay.
INTRO THREE PARAGRAPHS
1. Make a link between the 1. Strong topic sentences (AO1)
question and the passage 2. Evidence and refs (AO1)
2. Identify what shift this 3. Subject terminology (AO2)
extract marks 4. Exploring the impact of language techniques
3. Identify what shift occurs (AO2)
later 5. Significance inside the story (AO2)
6. Context and significance outside the story
(AO3)
What should my Macbeth essay look like?
How far does Shakespeare present Lady Macbeth as immoral in this scene and
the rest of the play?
In this scene which introduces Lady Macbeth to the audience, she is
characterised as immoral when she plots the murder of King Duncan and calls on
evil spirits. Shakespeare shows how her ambition for herself and Macbeth makes
her completely disregard her sense of morality without any concern for the
consequences. By Act 5, however, her character has developed so that her guilt
catches up to her and her earlier lack of morality begins to have consequences
as she loses her connection with Macbeth, her sanity and ultimately her life.
In this scene Lady Macbeth’s lack of morality is highlighted through the way she
actively associates herself with evil. She calls on the spirits to assist her, saying
‘Come you Spirits’, ‘unsex me here’ and ‘take my milk for gall’. Here
Shakespeare makes her use imperatives to call on the supernatural to
emphasize how bold and immoral she is, because she is calling out to agents of
the devil, which she knows is sacrilege. The fact she is alone on stage is
significant as it presents the idea that she is being her true, uninhibited self and
expressing her true beliefs and desires. The Jacobean audience would be
particularly appalled and entertained by this thrilling scene because she is so
clearly unafraid of something they would find so frightening. This would be all
the more shocking because they would most likely expect a female character to
be docile, mild and religious and Lady Macbeth utterly subverts this stereotype.
Shakespeare further emphasizes Lady Macbeth’s lack of morality through the
sinister imagery she uses in her soliloquy. At the beginning of her speech, she
says ‘the raven himself his hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
under my battlements’. Here her language creates a sinister atmosphere
because she describes the frightening sound of a crowing raven which is
predicting the death of the king. It seems like this bird is an ominous agent of the
supernatural which can tell the future and is in partnership with Lady Macbeth
which provides a disturbing opening to her speech. Her language further adds to
this menacing mood when she wants the ‘thick night’ to ‘pall [itself] in the
dunnest smoke of hell’ which evokes images of darkness, like there is a thick
smoke swirling around her. It is as if she is collaborating with evil and
supernatural forces to create the perfect environment for the evil deed of
Duncan’s regicide. Shakespeare also uses the images of darkness as symbols of
her inner darkness and lack of morality.
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