In Macbeth, to permit her husband, Macbeth to seize the crown, Lady Macbeth is determined to gain the strength to carry out the murder of King Duncan, which results in the rejection of herself as a woman and as a human. Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 1 demonstrates how the desire for power and authority to satisfy one’s ambitions results in the destruction of individual traits within oneself. The fact that she is tormented by evil and becomes mad at the end shows that unlawful acts are a form of self-destruction that fragments one’s sense of self-identification and understanding.
During this era, there were specific gender roles prevalent in society that men and women were expected to carry out. Males were associated with traits of strength, violence, and aggression, while females were associated with beauty, purity, sensitivity, and non-violence. They were viewed as the kinder, more compassionate, and weaker sex. Women were considered incapable of thinking about and committing evil deeds. Dictated by this understanding and worried about her husband’s reluctance to murder King Duncan, Lady Macbeth commands the spirits to both psychologically and physically change her gender and deprive her of all female traits. Moreover, she is acknowledged as Macbeth’s “dearest partner of greatness” (1.5.12), so to fulfill her role in this partnership, Lady Macbeth must supply the strength and will that he does not have and strip away her femininity to acquire the strength she needs to support her husband.
Throughout Macbeth, Lady Macbeth uses the imperative “come” repetitively as in “Come, you spirits” (1.5.41), “Come to my woman’s breasts” (1.5.48), and “Come, thick night” (1.5.51), as well as the command, “take” in “take my milk for gall” (1.5.49). Commands from a female figure were traditionally inappropriate, but this highlights her determination and strength as well as marks her desperation to change herself. She is aware of her femininity, which is a sign of weakness and frailty for her and confines her to the limitations of being a woman. As Lady Macbeth gives commands to the supernatural, she is defying the common fear of witchcraft. She summons the darkness and conjures up evil spirits. This portrays her as a Witch, who is both female and male yet also neither sex. She calls on devilish witchcraft, which is beyond human control, to help her. This echoes the speech the Weird Sisters recite in the beginning of Macbeth as they cast a spell to summon evil spirits.
Lady Macbeth strongly believes that being a woman holds her back from “direst cruelty” (1.5.44), so she has a clear resentment towards her gender. Therefore, using the language of negation found throughout the play, Lady Macbeth explicitly demands the spirits to “unsex” (1.5.42) her, as in “to deprive of the characteristics, attributes, or qualities associated with his or her sex” (“unsex, n., def. 1). She wants to be stripped of all feminine qualities and what makes her a reproductive woman, so that no kindness or caring nature apparently innate in her womanhood will affect her conscience and hinder the murder of King Duncan. She needs to sacrifice her femininity to exert authority. This desired action also exhibits a departure from the human realm as “unsex” also means “to make (a person) neither male nor female; to render sexless” (“unsex, n.”, def. 2a).
Lady Macbeth accuses her husband, Macbeth to be too full of “the milk of human kindness” (1.5.18), but she is also full of the milk. She alludes to this accusation with her commands given to the spirits to “Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall” (1.5.48-49). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “gall” is “a secretion of the liver, bile” (“gall, n.” def. 1a) and “bitterness of spirit, asperity, rancor” (“gall, n.”, def. 3a). Lady Macbeth orders for physiological changes, specifically those that represent maternal functions and natural nurturing instincts, as it impedes her from executing acts of cruelty and violence, which are associated with masculinity. However, though she could be free from nurturing propensities, Lady Macbeth doesn’t simply demand her breast milk to be removed completely, but rather that it be replaced with bile and bitterness. As if she was a vessel, she wishes to be emptied of kindness and compassion and be filled with bitterness “from the crown to the toe” (1.5.43) instead. The replacement would transform her into a death incarnate as her milk will not be a source of life that provides nourishment, but rather one that brings death, making her a powerful threat. In addition, based on the medicinal theory of “humorism” of Shakespeare’s time period that states that “health, disease, and temperament are determined by the four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) in the body” (“humorism, n.”, def.1), the excess of yellow bile in the gallbladder would make Lady Macbeth violent, aggressive, and choleric.
Lady Macbeth also instructs the spirits to “make thick” her “blood” and “Stop th’ access and passage to remorse” and that there be “no compunctious visitings of nature” (1.5.44-46). The human cardiovascular system consists of blood, arteries, veins, capillaries, and the heart. Together, they are all associated with feelings and emotions. In the concept of modern science, when blood becomes thicker, bodily functions slow down and eventually, the body shuts down. With this idea, Lady Macbeth is arming herself against natural human emotions, the “compunctious visitings of nature” (1.5.46), by blocking them out to feel no sensitivity, remorse, pity, or sympathy for others. The “visitings of nature” also reference her menstrual cycle, which will make her emotional and sensitive – essentially highlighting the feminine qualities she so desperately wants to rid herself of. Lady Macbeth becomes inhumane and blocks any “access and passage” that will invade her conscience and interfere with her “fell purpose” (1.5.47). Moreover, in the terms of theory of humorism, when blood is thickened, Lady Macbeth would become “sanguine” which means “delighting in bloodshed” (“sanguine, adj,”, def. 2b). She would become more eager to kill King Duncan.
Lady Macbeth also orders the “thick night” (1.5.51) to shroud everything in darkness to conceal the murder of Duncan. There cannot be any witnesses, especially of heaven and God, of the unlawful act that is about to take place. Moreover, the darkness must shield her “keen knife” (1.5.53) from being seen. If she does not get caught, Lady Macbeth believes that the crime will go away, and as though the act never took place, she will not experience any guilt. However, since God’s eyes can even see through the curtains of darkness, “heaven” (1.5.54) can be also a metaphor of her conscience. She wants her conscience to be buried deep into “the blanket of the dark” (1.5.54).
However, at the end, the assistance of the supernatural does not prevent her downfall. By thickening her blood, Lady Macbeth’s guilt has thickened since “blood” also means “guilt for bloodshed” (“blood, n.”, def. 2b). By doubling the guilt, this has allowed the “passage to remorse” (1.5.45) to open, and Lady Macbeth becomes psychologically broken. In Act 5, in her sleepwalking state, she says, “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” (5.1.46) and “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” (5.1.53-55). Plunged into madness, she eventually dies.
In Macbeth, the act of negation does not lead to good things. To gain power, Lady Macbeth communicated with the evil spirits and made efforts to change herself and become less of a woman, psychologically and physiologically. However, blinded by the pursuit of this change in her identity, Lady Macbeth’s has destroyed all values of morality within herself. Her misconstrued ideology of how the act of murder equates with one’s gender has made her execute a decision that is both regretful and unlawful, and this eventually leads Lady Macbeth to self-destruct completely.