Sure, Lady Macbeth orchestrates multiple deaths throughout the play and frequently emasculates her husband by accusing him of weakness, but her manipulative murder plots and her rejection of her gender cast her as what some might see as an amusingly devious and entertaining co-star in Macbeth. In his 1606 play, William Shakespeare brings a whirlwind character to the stage, pushing against the strict definitions of gender and power that continue to exist today while evoking a complicated sense of sympathy through her emotional fall to madness.

Asserting her influence over Macbeth despite her status as a woman in medieval Scotland, Lady Macbeth motivates her husband to pursue their mutual goal: power. Towards the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth seems like the dominant partner within the duo, as she masterminds murder plots, and even attempts to remove her femininity in the hopes that she will consequently gain the strength, that her husband does not initially possess, to follow through with murder. In her famous speech, Lady Macbeth begs the spirits:

…Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direct cruelty! Make thick my blood,
Stop up th’access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between
Th’effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! (1.5.38-48)

Her requests to “unsex [her]” and “take [her] milk for gall” indicate that she intends to remove the feminine aspects of her body and mind to free herself of guilt, demonstrating that her gender impedes her plan to murder King Duncan, see Macbeth succeed to his throne, and solidify her and her husband’s power. In defiance of her gender, however, Lady Macbeth persists in her guiltlessness—if only for a short time.

While her fiercely-held ambitions deem her a uniquely empowered woman for her time, Lady Macbeth continues to evoke emotion from readers who are incensed by her resolve to kill and from viewers who sympathize with her spiraling descent to crippling guilt and madness. Through various enthralling interpretations, Lady Macbeth appears in film as the mourning mother of a dead child as well as the classical guilty coconspirator to a self-serving murder plot.

Justin Kurzel’s 2015 film opens with a shot of an infant child’s corpse. Soon after, Lady Macbeth approaches the child’s body, Macbeth dutifully by her side, before the altar is engulfed in flames. The Macbeths lean their heads against one another, showing the support each filches from the other. Later, Lady Macbeth descends into madness, mumbling to herself and manically rubbing her hands clean of blood stains that aren’t there. In Kurzel’s version, Lady Macbeth looks, with tears in her eyes, just to the side of the camera. A tear falls down her cheek as she begs, “Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed” (5.1.59-61), reaching for something off-screen. The end of the scene shocks the audience as the camera cuts to the spot on which Lady Macbeth’s eyes are fixed and reveals for what she reaches: a child. By interpreting Lady Macbeth as a mourning mother, Kurzel draws attention to her gender, the psychological effects of losing a child, and her counterintuitive resolve to murder. The idea that the Macbeths have a dead child is fascinating, cementing the significance of Lady Macbeth’s femininity and depicting her grief as she reaches for the deceased child, unable to hold him.

In Phillip Casson’s 1979 version of the same scene, Judi Dench’s harrowing twenty-five-second-long “Oh” unsettles and inspires empathy for the woman in pain. By drawing out the word “Oh” and turning it into a screeching wail for this excruciatingly long time, this interpretation intensely displays Lady Macbeth’s desperation and guilt. The audience feels her pain, despite the fact that her suffering results from her insatiable hunger for power.

As she drives herself to madness, Lady Macbeth continues to evoke emotion, captivating readers in English classes, audience members at the Globe in seventeenth-century England, and viewers of all modern film adaptations alike.

Citations:

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, Edited by Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Suzanne Gossett, Jean E. Howard, Katharine Eisaman Maus, Gordon McMullan, 3rd ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2016, pp. 917-69.

Macbeth. Dir. Justin Kurzel. Perf. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. The Weinstein Company, 2015. Film.

A Performance of Macbeth. Dir. Philip Casson. Perf. Ian McKellen and Judi Dench. Royal Shakespeare Company, 1979. Film.

As the Olympic theme song fills living rooms all around the world at prime time each evening and people suddenly become experts on gold medal slopestyle form and proper bobsled strategy for sixteen days, I can’t help but reflect on my own Winter Olympics sport of choice: figure skating. Though it’s been four years since I stepped off the ice and thus concluded my ten-year stint with the sport, I look back on the victories, challenges and lessons I learned from ice skating with serene reminiscence and self-reflection mirroring that conveyed in William Wordsworth’s The Prelude, an autobiographical exploration of one of the first English Romantic poet’s growth as a man and master of poetry, which was published posthumously in 1850. Specifically, “Book I: Introduction—Childhood and School-time” details the nostalgic thrill and elated pleasure of witnessing a group of children ice skating and tracing the influences of one’s identity.

As our speaker comes across a group of children ice skating outdoors, he pleasantly reflects on his formative years through vivid diction and tangible images of winter. With excitement, Wordsworth writes:

“And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,
I heeded not their summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us—for me
It was a time of rapture! (lines 425-30)”

These lines evoke the energy and pleasure associated with walking through the countryside and seeing children play games outdoors reminiscent of one’s own childhood, conveying the similar experience for me of flipping through channels and stumbling upon Olympic figure skating—a pleasant surprise that brings forth cherished memories of youthful fun.

Using imagery from nature as a stand-in for the speaker’s developing feelings, Wordsworth describes nature’s ability to instill important values that shape a child’s identity. He writes, “Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up / Fostered alike by beauty and by fear” (301-2), indicating the developmental experiences that influence a child’s identity. Essentially, Wordsworth underscores nature’s role in shaping a child’s thoughts and emotions, ultimately establishing a set of morals and forming “a grandeur in the beatings of the heart (414)” that lasts beyond the formative years. Further, Wordsworth suggests that his skills as a poet gained a similar “grandeur” and refinement through the influences of his childhood spent in nature, enjoying the comfort of the familiar outdoors and acquainting himself with consequent pleasure and morality.

While Wordsworth transformed into the man and poet he was by his influential relationship with nature, my character was shaped by the discipline and endurance of practicing figure skating. Just as Wordsworth’s childhood games in nature influenced the poet he became, I can trace my aptitude for working hard and never giving up, my ability to fall with and without grace, and maybe most importantly my resilience that drives me to get up and try again to my years of ice skating.

Though many years have passed since our respective formative childhood years, the late Wordsworth and I each experience nostalgia and pleasure by stumbling upon old memories, whether they come to mind while walking through the countryside or channel surfing on cold nights in February. We explore the intricate ways our morals, values, and skills developed as we grew up, whether spent playing games outdoors all seasons of the year or attempting—and failing—the same trick over and over again until it was finally learned.

Citation: Wordsworth, William. “Book I: Introduction—Childhood and School-time.” The Prelude. London: Edward Moxon, 1851. Online.