Lady Macduff provides an example of a woman who generally stays within the bounds of her gender, serving as an appropriate foil to Lady Macbeth’s disorderly dissent. The first impression of Lady Macduff, however, presents her slightly out of place, as when she receives news that her husband has fled she responds, “His flight was madness. When our actions do not/Our fears do make us traitors” (IV.ii.3-4). This criticism against her husband immediately puts Lady Macduff out of place, as women at this time were expected to accept whatever actions their husbands chose and were never permitted to criticize their mistakes. Yet although this comment is out of character for a woman and places her among the ranks of Lady Macbeth, she is redeemed when she reveals her intentions for this criticism, expressing that Macduff “loves us not/He wants the natural touch, for the poor wren/The most diminutive of birds, will fight/Her young ones in her nest, against the owl” (IV.ii.8-11). By using the example of birds remaining loyal to their young against any fatal threats, Lady Macduff implies that her husband is disrupting the order of familial bonds by deserting his wife and children when danger lurks nearby. This criticism therefore separates Lady Macduff from Lady Macbeth because she calls for her husband to see reason and to choose moral actions, while Lady Macbeth’s criticisms were meant to steer her husband to commit acts of violent treachery. It is Lady Macduff’s determination to restore familial order which leads to her destruction, however, as she is unable to provide protection when Macbeth’s hired murderers attack her and her children and she cries, “Why then, alas/Do I put up that womanly defense/To say I have done no harm?” (IV.ii.75-78). From this statement, Lady Macduff characterizes the condition of women to be weak and powerless against ruthless forces and his additionally provides commentary on the backward state of Scotland, as the innocent are being killed. Macbeth’s tyrannical kingship has led to this disorder, and since this rule was initiated by Lady Macbeth’s initial idea of pushing her husband into action, Lady Macduff’s character and death comes to represent the inability to maintain order and tradition when powerful individuals have chosen to rule through chaos.
Murry Young as Macduff's Son and Lindsey Young as Lady Macduff in Union University's production of Macbeth
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Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth (c. 1603–1607). As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide, after which she becomes queen of Scotland. Some regard her as becoming more powerful than Macbeth when she does this, because she is able to manipulate him into doing what she wants. After Macbeth becomes a murderous tyrant, she is driven to madness by guilt over their crimes and kills herself offstage.
Lady Macbeth is a powerful presence in the play, most notably in the first two acts. Following the murder of King Duncan, however, her role in the plot diminishes. She becomes an uninvolved spectator to Macbeth's plotting and a nervous hostess at a banquet dominated by her husband's hallucinations. Her sleepwalking scene in the fifth act is a turning point in the play, and her line "Out, damned spot!" has become a phrase familiar to many speakers of the English language. The report of her death late in the fifth act provides the inspiration for Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech.
The role has attracted countless notable actors over the centuries, including Sarah Siddons, Charlotte Melmoth, Helen Faucit, Ellen Terry, Jeanette Nolan, Vivien Leigh, Isuzu Yamada, Simone Signoret, Vivien Merchant, Glenda Jackson, Francesca Annis, Judith Anderson, Judi Dench, Renee O'Connor, Helen McCrory, Keeley Hawes, Alex Kingston, Marion Cotillard, Hannah Taylor-Gordon, Frances McDormand, Florence Pugh, Ruth Negga, Saoirse Ronan and Valene Kane.
Analyses of the role
Lady Macbeth as anti-mother
Stephanie Chamberlain in her article "Fantasizing Infanticide: Lady Macbeth and the Murdering Mother in Early Modern England" argues that though Lady Macbeth wants power, her power is "conditioned on maternity", which was a "conflicted status in early modern England". Chamberlain argues that the negative images of Lady Macbeth as a mother figure, such as when she discusses her ability to "dash the brains" of the babe that sucks her breast, reflect controversies concerning the image of motherhood in early modern England. In early modern England, mothers were often accused of hurting the people that were placed in their hands. Lady Macbeth then personifies all mothers of early modern England who were condemned for Lady Macbeth's fantasy of infanticide. Lady Macbeth's fantasy, Chamberlain argues, is not struggling to be a man, but rather struggling with the condemnation of being a bad mother that was common during that time.[1]
A print of Lady Macbeth from Mrs. Anna Jameson's 1832 analysis of Shakespeare's heroines, Characteristics of Women
Jenijoy La Belle takes a slightly different view in her article, "A Strange Infirmity: Lady Macbeth’s Amenorrhea". La Belle states that Lady Macbeth does not wish for just a move away from femininity; she is asking the spirits to eliminate the basic biological characteristics of womanhood. The main biological characteristic that La Belle focuses on is menstruation. La Belle argues that by asking to be "unsex[ed]" and crying out to spirits to "make thick [her] blood / Stop up th' access and passage to remorse", Lady Macbeth asks for her menstrual cycle to stop. By having her menstrual cycle stop, Lady Macbeth hopes to stop any feelings of sensitivity and caring that is associated with females. She hopes to become like a man to stop any sense of remorse for the regicide. La Belle furthers her argument by connecting the stopping of the menstrual cycle with the persistent infanticide motifs in the play. La Belle gives examples of "the strangled babe" whose finger is thrown into the witches' cauldron (4.1.30); Macduff's babes who are "savagely slaughter’d" (4.3.235); and the suckling babe with boneless gums whose brains Lady Macbeth would dash out (1.7.57–58) to argue that Lady Macbeth represents the ultimate anti-mother: not only would she smash in a baby's brains but she would go even further to stop her means of procreation altogether.[2]
Lady Macbeth as a witch
Some literary critics and historians argue that not only does Lady Macbeth represent an anti-mother figure in general, she also embodies a specific type of anti-mother: the witch.[3] Modern day critic Joanna Levin defines a witch as a woman who succumbs to Satanic force, a lust for the devil, and who, either for this reason or the desire to obtain supernatural powers, invokes (evil) spirits. Levin refers to Marianne Hester's Lewd Women and Wicked Witches: A Study of Male Domination, in which Hester articulates a feminist interpretation of the witch as an empowered woman. Levin summarises the claim of feminist historians like Hester: the witch should be a figure celebrated for her nonconformity, defiance, and general sense of empowerment; witches challenged patriarchal authority and hierarchy, specifically "threatening hegemonic sex/gender systems". This view associates witchcra