Lady Macbeth vs the damn spot

At the beginning of the story Macbeth, Lady Macbeth was confident and fierce about how to approach her husband. She was the commanding force of the story in the beginning in persuading her husband to kill Duncan. She tries to give her husband confidence in order to achieve the crown by him getting some blood on his hands and so did she. There was kind of a reverse  of roles with Macbeth acting feminine and Lady Macbeth taking on the masculine side where Lady Macbeth is comforting Macbeth after killing Duncan . The roles switch again towards the end where Macbeth has reclaimed his masculinity and Lady Macbeth is more feminine. Her sensitivity has overcome her and she is consumed with guilt. I feel that Lady Macbeth regrets and feels what her husband has become, a ruthless killer, was the worst mistake she has made and that she was not able to tame him. 

However, afterwards, Lady Macbeth slowly goes mad just as Macbeth did after he committed the crime. In Act 5 scene 1, Lady Macbeth claims she has blood on her hands, "out, damn spot, out I say!" the spot that Lady Macbeth is seeing is all in her head and there is not really a blood stain. The blood stain that she has in her hands are all the crimes that her husband has committed. She cannot get rid of the crime that she has committed "Here's the smell of the blood is still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand", she tries desperately to get rid of the blood she sees not even perfume can mask the smell of the blood that she is imaging.  I think at this point Lady Macbeth is feeling guilty and regrets what she had done has overcome her and ultimately drove her to kill herself in the end. 




Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 11, 2017 at 11:40 PM

    Good post Victoria! I wrote my blog post and focussed on many similar things as you did. I find Lady Macbeth so interesting. I also talked about how she was so powerful and it caught up to her as she felt guilt in the end. I think she should. She is the one that influenced and changed Macbeth. After Macbeth killed Duncan at the beginning, he went off the deep end of killing from there on out. She was so eager to get the status of Macbeth being King that she didn't even think of her/his actions. I like how Shakespeare makes her role and personality so interesting and unpredictable. I wonder what the book would have been like if she had kept her role from the beginning throughout the book?

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  2. UnknownOctober 12, 2017 at 8:51 PM

    I personally find it so frustrating that in the end of the story Lady Macbeth loses her mind and reverts to the stereotypical, "women are the emotional and weak ones." It was so refreshing to see a woman have all the power and control for once. The fact that Macbeth literally followed every order his wife gave was such a turn of events and I think every woman who reads this play either inwardly or outwardly is cheering Lady Macbeth on (despite the fact she wants everyone killed). I understand that Shakespeare's motive for Lady Macbeth's demise could likely revolve around the theme of accepting the consequences of your actions which is likely why Lady Macbeth had to suffer some sort of mishap, but it would have been nice to see her at least go out in style. I mean if Macbeth were the one to commit suicide and Lady Macbeth were the one to be beheaded I wouldn't have any issues with that...

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