Sydney Nichols
ID # 810-70-1811
February 15, 2010
ENGL 3000
Lady Macbeth: Filled From the Crown to the Toe With Cruelty
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is a power hungry and manipulative force that
convinces Macbeth to commit murder so they can become king and queen of Scotland. In Act
I.v, Lady Macbeth receives a letter from Macbeth telling her the Three Witches prophesized that
he will first become Thane of Cawdor and then king. He writes that he has already become
Thane of Cawdor, and they both believe that the prophecy will come true. After reading the
letter, Lady Macbeth worries about Macbeth’s ability to be king because although he is
ambitious, he lacks some of the cutthroat attributes needed to rule a country. She thinks about
killing the king herself to make the prophecy come true. A messenger then enters the room to
notify Lady Macbeth that the King is coming to their estate for the night, after which she delivers
a soliloquy, paraphrased below, driven by her desire for power.
“The hoarse messenger tells me that Duncan comes here tonight, where he will die.
Please, spirits who feed on deadly thoughts, make me manly and fill me entirely with cruelty.
Make my skin thick so I won’t be able to feel any remorse. Don’t let my conscience nor any act
of kindness get in the way. Take the milk from my breasts that make me a woman and fill them
with biter wine to make me a man, you murdering agents, wherever you wait to do evil. Come,
dark night, cover the world in darkness so no one will see my deed, and don’t let me feel bad for
murdering Duncan nor let the heaven’s cut through the dark and stop me,” (I.v.37-53).
Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy reveals the inner workings of her character. She is by herself
so she can speak freely about killing King Duncan. She asks the spirits to make her cruel like a
man and to not let her feel guilty for what she is about to do. Her requests of the spirits show
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just how desperate Lady Macbeth is for power, and that she will stop at nothing to get it. The
fact that she is asking to be “unsexed” (I.v.40) and not feel guilty for her actions does show
however, that she possesses some kind feelings. If she were completely cruel, she wouldn’t
think twice about killing someone. Lady Macbeth’s character is clearly power hungry, and her
soliloquy reveals that she will go as far as murdering someone to get what she wants.
Shakespeare uses figurative language to enhance the passion and imagery in Lady
Macbeth’s soliloquy. For example, the line “And fill me from the crown to the toe topful / of
direst cruelty” (I.v.41-42), employs a subtle pun to emphasize Lady Macbeth’s need for power.
The word crown she uses to refer to her head but it also refers to the crown a king wears, the
crown that Lady Macbeth wants to wear. Shakespeare also uses alliteration for emphasis in the
soliloquy as demonstrated by the line “You murd’ring ministers, / wherever in your sightless
substances you wait on nature’s mischief” (I.v.47-48). “Murdering ministers” refers to the
spirits, or demons, that Lady Macbeth pleads to in her soliloquy. Shakespeare is emphasizing
that Lady Macbeth has inner demons that translate into her inner desire for power. Shakespeare
also enhances the imagery of the soliloquy by using personification. For example, “Nor heaven
peep through the blanket of the dark / to cry ‘Hold, Hold’,” (I.v.52-53). It is easy to picture the
heavens breaking a hole in the dark clouds Lady Macbeth wants to cover the earth, and then
saying, “No wait, stop!” Shakespeare’s use of figurative language provides a way to bring the
soliloquy to life while artfully emphasizing important parts of the play.
Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy highlights two main themes in Macbeth: power and killing. In
her speech, Lady Macbeth asks the spirits for power to kill King Duncan so she can have power
over Scotland. Macbeth is another character in the play that desires power. After being
promoted to Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth, with a little help from his wife, becomes power hungry
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as well, and soon he too desperately wants the crown. The need for power is a driving force in
the play. The desire for power also inspires another theme in Macbeth: killing. The play opens
with Scotland in a war against England and Ireland over power. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
want to kill King Duncan for power, and while killing King Duncan, they end up killing his
guards too. In later acts, Macbeth does become king, and as a result of feeling like he will loose
his power, he has Banquo killed, and tires to kill Banquo’s son, Fleance, as well. Macbeth also
arranges to have Macduff’s whole family murdered in Act IV. Clearly, Macbeth is a tragedy
about what the desire for power can do to people, and this theme is reflected in Lady Macbeth’s
soliloquy.
Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy raises a few questions about the play as a whole. First, why
does Lady Macbeth associate power with manliness? In her soliloquy, she basically asks to
become a man so she will have the power to kill someone because she thinks that women don’t
have the will to do it. The fundamental association of power with maleness is interesting
because it is Lady Macbeth (a women) that asserts her power over her husband in order to
convince him to commit murder, which clearly illustrates that women do have power. After
reading the first act of Macbeth, one must also ask, why is Lady Macbeth so power hungry in the
first place? When the audience first meets her, she immediately jumps into how desperately she
wants the crown, but there isn’t really an explanation as to why that is. This is an interesting
question because Lady Macbeth’s power hungry ways are a major driving force in the plot of the
play. If she didn’t care that much about becoming queen, she wouldn’t push Macbeth into
killing King Duncan, which would alter the plot of the whole play. Lady Macbeth’s character is
undoubtedly a major catalyst in Macbeth, and her soliloquy demonstrates what the play is about:
how the need for power can completely consume a person.
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