e seems crazy- or haunted. Before he kills Duncan, Macbeth sees a dagger floating in the air. After the murder, he hears voices. And later he sees Banquo's ghost. You are never quite sure if these are hallucinations- the imaginings of a sick mind- or if they are apparitions, like the witches. You begin to wonder how real they are. LADY MACBETH At the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth, unlike her husband, seems to have only one opinion about murder: if it helps her to get what she wants, she is in favor of it. For the first two acts of the play, some readers think she is the most interesting character. Their fascination is probably based on her total lack of scruples. Lady Macbeth is a strong woman. She is a twisted example of the saying, "Behind every great man there's a woman." Once she sees that her husband's ambition has been inflamed, she is willing to risk anything to help him get the crown. She understands her husband very well: Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way. (Act I, Scene v, lines 17-19) In other words, she knows that Macbeth's conscience will stand in the way of his ambition. For the sake of their "prize," she renounces all the soft, human parts of her own nature. In a play so full of supernatural events, we can take her literally if we want to when she calls upon "...spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts..." to "Stop up th' access and passage to remorse / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose..." (Act I, Scene v, lines 41-42 and 45-47). It is as if she were tearing her heart out to make her husband king. Lady Macbeth's singleness of purpose seems to prove that she has been successful in emptying herself of human feeling. When Macbeth tries to back out of committing the murder, she treats him with contempt. She questions his manhood and shames him into doing it. Look at how effortlessly she lies. When Duncan, whom she plans to kill, ar...
