Close Reading on Lady Macbeth's Opening Monologue

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst 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 murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’

My senior year of high school, listening to my college composition teacher read Lady Macbeth's famous opening monologue, I was both confused and impressed by the levels of aggression Lady Macbeth showed in comparison to many passive female characters in Shakespearean plays. Now, almost three years later, listening to Kate Fleetwood as Lady Macbeth recite these lines resulted in a bone chilling eerie feeling (or maybe the bone chilling came from the sub Arctic temperature of our classroom) as Lady Macbeth begins to recognize her place of power.

Throughout history, ravens are often seen as this mediator between life and death. Often seen flying ominously throughout graveyards, their black color, lean body types, and bone chilling caws definitely give these birds an almost otherworldly feel. Lady Macbeth starts this monologue with, “the raven himself is hoarse,” giving the reader (or viewer) the feeling that even the raven’s, possibly a metaphor for King Duncan, time is running out.

Lady Macbeth then calls upon the spirits to take away her femininity and “unsex” her, and “make thick [her] blood,” insinuating that her biological gender prevents her from doing evil actions, and the only way for her to do this is by distancing herself from her gender, or at the very least, the stereotypes that go along with it.

Emphasizing her desire to end King Duncan’s life, Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to fill her “from the crown to the toe” full of “direct cruelty.” The use of the word crown obviously refers to the crown of one’s head, but can also be seen as a comparison to Duncan’s crown. In saying this, Lady Macbeth requests that the spirits assist her in turning her back to female stereotypes of the time, and fill her with hate for Duncan, for what she desires for her and her husband is the crown Duncan wears. The benefit of having her blood to be made thick, is the thought that this will result in the passage to remorse being stopped up, or, in so many words, that her conscience will not be made guilty for the evil actions that she must commit in order to receive the desired outcome.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 4, 2017 at 10:20 AM

    Awesome analysis. I liked how you focused specifically on the language used, which is something that we have not really done as a class. Typically, we focus on the larger ideas of gender and identity, but it was cool how you went back to the basics of literature and analyzed his word choice. When reading her opening monologue, I didn't even hesitate at the word "raven." It is so true that it adds that eerie atmosphere to the text, possibly foreshadowing the events to come.

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