Is Lady Macbeth Truly an Evil Character?
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 09/25/2011 01:53 PM
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Is Lady Macbeth truly an evil character?
In the play Lady Macbeth probably plays the most key role in the play because I believe that it’s Lady Macbeth who persuades Macbeth to slaughter Duncan. Without her he wouldn’t have taken all the wrong turns from the very beginning to the very end.
In Act 1 Scene 5 Lady Macbeth says ‘Come you spirits’, this is one of the most revealing things she says because she illustrates that she is on friendly terms with the evil spirits showing us directly the ‘darker’ side of her character.
The old saying which I could never prove true until now ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’, has been proved really well by Shakespeare himself. In Polanski’s version of the play he displays Lady Macbeth as a nature loving, love filled, warm hearted women, but as time passes he exposes her true inner self. However in Trevor Nunn’s version, Lady Macbeth was introduced as an ugly, cold heated, bitter and twisted woman who didn’t have a care in the world for anything except herself. The 2 directors different portrayals of her show the different aspects of her character and how differently she can be interpreted.
When Lady Macbeth reads the letter which she received from Macbeth’s letter, her reaction shows that she is excited. We can see this in Trevor Nunn’s version of the play where she starts off by reading in a slow and calm manner, trying to prepare her self for all she knows Macbeth might be dead, gradually getting louder and then becoming out of breath. When Macbeth sends her the letter she reads ‘this have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness’, showing respect upon one another.
At the beginning of Act 1, scene 7 Macbeths conscience kicks in, he says, ‘then as his host who should against hi murderer shut the door not bear the knife myself’, meaning Macbeth is the host, he should be keeping a close eye on Duncan he should be protecting him from real evil and not planning to kill him....
In the play Lady Macbeth probably plays the most key role in the play because I believe that it’s Lady Macbeth who persuades Macbeth to slaughter Duncan. Without her he wouldn’t have taken all the wrong turns from the very beginning to the very end.
In Act 1 Scene 5 Lady Macbeth says ‘Come you spirits’, this is one of the most revealing things she says because she illustrates that she is on friendly terms with the evil spirits showing us directly the ‘darker’ side of her character.
The old saying which I could never prove true until now ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’, has been proved really well by Shakespeare himself. In Polanski’s version of the play he displays Lady Macbeth as a nature loving, love filled, warm hearted women, but as time passes he exposes her true inner self. However in Trevor Nunn’s version, Lady Macbeth was introduced as an ugly, cold heated, bitter and twisted woman who didn’t have a care in the world for anything except herself. The 2 directors different portrayals of her show the different aspects of her character and how differently she can be interpreted.
When Lady Macbeth reads the letter which she received from Macbeth’s letter, her reaction shows that she is excited. We can see this in Trevor Nunn’s version of the play where she starts off by reading in a slow and calm manner, trying to prepare her self for all she knows Macbeth might be dead, gradually getting louder and then becoming out of breath. When Macbeth sends her the letter she reads ‘this have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness’, showing respect upon one another.
At the beginning of Act 1, scene 7 Macbeths conscience kicks in, he says, ‘then as his host who should against hi murderer shut the door not bear the knife myself’, meaning Macbeth is the host, he should be keeping a close eye on Duncan he should be protecting him from real evil and not planning to kill him....