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In Act I Scene 5 we are presented with a villainous Lady Macbeth plotting the murder of King Duncan. She is presented as the evil driving force in the lead-up to the king’s murder though this idea is not sustained and later we witness the character softening and eventually descending into madness. York Notes’ Macbeth GCSE Study Notes and Revision Guide provides all the information you need to craft exam answers that will earn high marks, and will help you to gain a thorough understanding of key elements in William Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, including the play’s plot, major characters, historical context and underlying themes.
Overall, Lady Macbeth can be seen as a villain, and she is certainly portrayed as such in the earlier scenes, especially where she is plotting with her husband as in the extract. However, when Macbeth arranges for Banquo’s murder without consulting her, he takes the lead as the main villain in the play and acts increasingly alone during his violent and brutal reign.Overall Shakespeare uses this scene to show Macbeth’s guilt very clearly and shows how the guilt will get worse for both of them later in the play. She then proceeds to advise Macbeth on how best to present himself. She accuses him of being too easy to read and says he must ‘look like the innocent flower,/But be the serpent under’t.’ This shows us that she is deceitful and that the audience sees her as a scheming Machiavellian character. Macbeth’s language in this extract is repetitious and unsettled. He uses the word ‘sleep’ seven times, emphasising his obsessive nature and the fixed state of his mind. The only clue to her later guilt it is in her brief reflection in the extract that she would have killed Duncan herself ‘Had he not/Resembled my father as he slept’. Later in Act I, we see additional evidence of Lady Macbeth as villain. When Macbeth says he will ‘proceed no further in this business’ she uses her powers of persuasion – undermining his manliness and questioning his courage – to convince Macbeth that murder is the best course of action. It is Lady Macbeth who suggests duping the guards ‘with wine and wassail’, and she who takes the bloody daggers from Macbeth to plant them on the grooms. She shows no fear of the dead, claiming the ‘sleeping and the dead/Are but as pictures’.
In fact, Macbeth appears to desire that the plan is delayed. He says ‘We will speak further’ suggesting that he is not entirely in agreement with Lady Macbeth at this point. This disruption of nature – all beings needing sleep to function – implies their guilt is so great that they will ‘sleep no more’. Aptly enough, as this extract shows, This scene comes after Macbeth has killed Duncan and he seems guilty straight away. He is hearing strange voices, which shows that he is upset. ‘Sleep no more!’ This shows that Macbeth is so guilty that he will never be able to sleep again. Later, Macbeth will be troubled by ‘terrible dreams’ (III.2) and Lady Macbeth will take to sleepwalking.
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He has murdered the king while he is sleeping, which is a deceitful thing to do especially as the king is in line to God. In Shakespeare’s time people believed in the Divine Right of Kings, which meant that there was a social hierarchy with God at the top. The king was next and so to murder a king would be considered even more awful than by today’s social values. Macbeth’s punishment for this is that his own sleep is murdered. Macbeth says ‘the innocent sleep’ showing that Duncan was blameless and this makes him more guilty for killing him. The two characters contrast and as the play goes on we see this more and more. Macbeth becomes a violent king, largely as a result of his guilt and fear of being exposed. Compared to Duncan, he is unpopular and disliked to the extent that Malcolm eventually gathers an army to overthrow him. He is overwhelmed by guilt to the extent that his command of language is depleted. Here, sleep can be seen as a metaphor for a calm and quiet conscience, but sleep can also contain nightmares.
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