Macbeth (Grades 9–1) York Notes

Lady Macbeth is Macbeth’s wife and in this scene she is waiting for Duncan, who is the king to visit Dunsinane. She wants to murder him with her husband so that they will be the king and queen instead of Duncan. She is a villain because she wants to kill the king and this was not acceptable at the time because everyone believed the king was in line to God.

In this conversation she is basically saying that Macbeth should be more clever in the way that he shows himself so he will look like he’s innocent. She says ‘Your face, my thane, is as a book’. She also says ‘Look like the time’ which shows she is a villain who can hide her feelings. She is a bit like the witches because she is cunning and trying to persuade her husband to do this thing just so that she can be the queen and have all the power.

Macbeth loves his wife and will do anything she asks, so she is in charge and is to blame for the death of the king. He says ‘My dearest love’ which you only say if you think a lot of somebody like he does for Lady Macbeth.

I think she says the murder is a ‘great business’ because she thinks it’s a good thing because she thinks it’s ‘great’ which is like saying it’s amazing. If she did not say this we could think that it was a bad thing.

In the play she kills herself after she has been trying to wash a spot of blood out of her hands which shows she is guilty. Usually a villain is someone who is bad all the way through a play but maybe because she kills herself she is not all bad after all and she has some feeling of being sorry. Her life does not turn out that great in the end, so perhaps she would have second thoughts about doing this sort of thing if she had another chance.

She does make Macbeth kill Duncan, so she is the villain, but she probably would not have got the idea if the witches had not come up with their prophecy about him being Thane of Glamis and Cawdor and king. So the witches are more to blame and more of the bad guys than Lady Macbeth because they set the whole ball rolling.

At the end of this bit she says ‘Only look up clear/to alter favour ever is to fear./Leave all the rest to me’. Which is saying that she will take care of everything. She does not actually say the word murder here or talk about killing the king so maybe the audience do not realise what she is going to do and so would not know she was a villain, but she is really.

Overall, she is a villain and she is played really well when she is wearing all black and has a scratchy voice. She can be scary on stage and can make the audience think is she the worst in the play or is Macbeth?