Macbeth Act I

Lady Macbeth

Although Lady Macbeth is named as such to denote that she is Macbeth’s wife, she is far from being his subordinate. Even though she has ill intentions, I admire that she thought the idea up of murdering the King herself. Too often in literature, we see we quiet, weak, women with flat personalities; their sole purpose to aid a man on his journey to find himself or wait as he does so. They might have some slight wit to them, such as Penelope in the Odyssey, but ultimately it is the man that drives the action and whom the reader is meant to relate to or feel for. Lady Macbeth is far from Penelope. Rather than being slightly smart but depending on her husband to save her, Lady Macbeth comes up with the devilish plot to kill the King herself. It is, in fact, Macbeth who isn’t sure about the plan and would rather let fate handle the witches prophecy about his ascent to kingship.

 

My favorite part that shows off Lady Macbeth as a strong, opinionated, albeit murderous woman is when she basically calls her husband a coward. It’s funny when this happens because in the previous scenes fellow soldiers were boasting about Macbeth’s greatness because he defeated the enemy and then was propelled into another war right after, yet here is his wife calling him a coward. Granted she believes he is a coward because he doesn’t want to gain his titles through wrongdoings, rather he wants to do everything by the book, it’s still amusing that a woman, who is believed to be inferior to a man, especially her husband, is insulting Macbeth without fear of reproach. Even the powerful witches who could see the future and make someone miserable with their spells hail him as a hero when they first meet him, yet his own wife belittles him.