Rebecca Barth
Mrs. Steelman
AP Literature
4 March 2011
The Logic of Lady Macbeth
The notion that power corrupts is thoroughly backed by hundreds of cases, and
the case of Lady Macbeth is no exception to this rule. The very concept that her husband
has been prophesied to be king manipulates Lady Macbeth to orchestrate the murder of
King Duncan and their own succession to the throne: “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and
shalt be / What thou art promised” (1.5.15-16). He may be Thane of Glamis and now of
Cawdor, but her ambition drives her to pursue the promise of kingship by killing Duncan.
However, while ambition does manipulate her, she is not consumed beyond the borders
of logical thought and reasoning. Even though Lady Macbeth is manipulated by ambition,
her decisions throughout the play remain rooted in logic.
Lady Macbeth’s logical reasoning is seen clearly from the moment she first hears
the witches’ prophecy. Her very first thought is that Macbeth is not suited to take action.
She realizes that he would never contrive to take the throne by force or treachery, and so
she decides to coach him through the act:
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. (29-31)
So while her mind is consumed by ambition she is still clearheaded enough to think
logically in her dealings with Macbeth and to use her knowledge of the inner workings of
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his mind -and the faults that lie there- to manipulate him into obliging her. She knows
exactly how to counter those faults which are currently impeding him from obtaining the
throne.
Lady Macbeth advises her husband throughout the play, but the most significant
time is when she first tells him her plan:
To beguile the time,
look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent
flower,
But be the serpent under’t. (1.6.75-78)
She advises him as to how he should act around the king so as not to draw suspicion to
their intentions. Again she proves that she knows her husband very well. She is aware of
his lack of proficiency in the art of deception and his incompetence concerning matters of
cunning.
Lady Macbeth knows when her husband is in need of some advice and she
advises him often, but when her counsel fails, she reasons that he needs a little push in
the right direction and she turns to manipulation:
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. (1.7.56-58)
Here Macbeth tries to back out of her scheme and she questions his manhood, saying that
he was a man when he agreed to kill the king, but if he backs out now he will not be a
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man. If, however, he goes through with her design then he will be a real man. She
manipulates him into cooperating with her idea because she knows she cannot fulfil the
plan by herself.
The plan itself is a beautifully constructed piece of work. Lady Macbeth develops
the perfect strategy to put her husband on the throne while deflecting the blame
elsewhere. Her strategy is logical, and as far as assassination attempts go, quite simple.
Her first insight comes after hearing that the king will be coming to visit them at Glamis
castle, but only for one night: “O never / Shall sun that morrow see!” (1.6.71-72). She
seizes the opportunity as it presents itself and knows that the perfect time to kill him is
when he is staying at their castle, hence she states that he will not live to see tomorrow.
When the king arrives she puts the first part of her plan into action; playing the
innocent and faithful servant:
All our service
In every point twice done and then done double,
were poor and single business to contend
Against those honors deep and broad wherewith
Your majesty loads our house. (1.6.18-22)
She uses flattery on him, saying that everything she has done to prepare for his visit
cannot do him justice since they are so honored that he should deign to pay them a visit at
all. In this way she brings his guard down and also paints a picture of innocence for after
the murder has been committed. For who would ever suspect that two such devoted
subjects would murder their king?
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The murder itself is the second part of her clever scheme and proves that she was
more than capable of thinking logically for all the manipulative force of ambition pushing
down on her:
When in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lies as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
Th’ unguarded Duncan? What not put upon
His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
of our great quell? (1.7.77-82)
Her part in the murder is to ensure that the servants become thoroughly intoxicated, while
it is Macbeth’s job to kill Duncan using the servants’ daggers. Since the servants will be
drunk and sleeping like the dead, they can easily be set up to take the blame of the
murder, thus freeing the guilty mastermind and her husband from culpability.
The third part of her strategy is to further frame the two servants by smearing
Duncan’s blood on them. When her incompetent husband returns carrying the murder
weapons with him, Lady Macbeth is furious because the daggers were supposed to be left
with the servants in order to complete the set up. Lady Macbeth, when she cannot
convince her husband to do so, decides to take the daggers back herself and, “If he do
bleed, / I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal, / For it must seem their guilt” (2.2.71-73),
she smears the servants with Duncan’s blood. This provides her with the perfect
scapegoat. So not only has she arranged her own innocence, but she has also gone one
step further saying ‘Look at us humble servants of the King. Yes, he was killed in our
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home, but see, those servants are covered in his blood’. How could they be suspected
when compared to the obvious guilt of the servants?
After the body has been found, Lady Macbeth decides to faint in fake horror at
this horrible crime that has been committed so that she may appear innocent and fragile,
crying, “Help me hence, ho” (2.3.38), as she faints. She could not very well simply stand
there impassively while everyone else reacted with shock and horror. With this final act
her ingenious scheme has reached its completion. But she does not lose her ability to
reason just because she has ascended to the top of the social hierarchy as queen.
Even though at this point in the play appearances lead readers to assume that the
Lady Macbeth has lost her mind, as Malcolm’s troops draw near the castle she makes one
last intellectual decision. She seems to have retained enough logic to commit suicide.
Malcolm must remove everyone standing in his way in order to reclaim his father’s
throne. The Lady Macbeth would undoubtedly have been viewed as a threat to his
succession to the throne, and thus Malcolm would have ordered her killed. Her suicide is
a daring act that saves her from a much more painful death at the hands of Malcolm’s
army.
All of Lady Macbeth’s actions in dealing with Macbeth, forming a plan, carrying
out the plan, and even committing suicide, are securely rooted in logic. In logic lies the
answer behind Lady Macbeth’s ambitious actions. Actions that explain how her decision
to murder are inevitable because between the logic of taking advantage of an opportunity
and the corrupting power of ambition, she never stood a chance. Logic governs all of her
decisions and actions even while ambition manipulates her into making them.