Contents

1. Abstract ……………………………………………………………………….02

2. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….03

3. Objectives ……………………………………………………………………....04

4. Significance ………………………………………………………………………04

5. Hypothesis ………………………………………………………………………04

6. Research Questions …………………………………………………………………..05

7. Research gap ………………………………………………………………….........05

8. Research Methodology ………………………………………………………………..05

9. Literature review ………………………………………………………….………06

10. Discussion …………………………………………………………….…….08

11. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….……...13

12. References …………………………………………………………………………14

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 Psychoanalysis of Lady Macbeth

Abstract

This is a comprehensive reading of Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. Its aim is to
study the character in depth, in order to demonstrate the idea that Lady Macbeth is not naturally a
brutal and evil woman, and the main reason of the changes in her behavior through the play is her
excessive ambition, not her intrinsic violence or as some might proclaim womanish brutality. I am
particularly interested in close analyzing Act I scene III and Act V, scene I (1-80), when Lady
Macbeth, in her sleepwalking (compounded by guilt and insomnia), plays out the washing theme
that runs throughout the play. Her sleepwalking may be seen here as a state, showing her duplicity
of personality, oscillating around repression and bravery free expression and cowardice. This study
leans mainly on the dialogues and the way Lady Macbeth acts in the play before and after the
inhumane act of murder.

Key words: psychological study, Lady Macbeth, Madness, melancholy, Fragmented and
incoherent speech, sleepwalking, ambition, violence, Julia Kristeva, Sigmund Freud.

Introduction

The history of madness is as old as civilization itself, as is the endeavor to try to perceive it. The
bible perhaps the earliest reflections on madness with the prominent of Saul and Nebuchadnezzar
being punished by madness for their disobedience. Renaissance madness was an extensive notion
encompassing a wide range of symptoms. Moreover, it proved to be a challenging and
controversial topic as the period was marked by a myriad of mental and psychological conditions
with no clear distinctions between their varying symptoms and causes. The Renaissance became
fascinated with madness and tried to distinguish between madness, melancholy, hysteria,
bewitchment, anger or rashness. As Shakespeare was a man familiar with the living notions, he
dramatized madness through a number of symptoms, but mostly through language i.e. speech. For
him language was inseparable from madness. In other words, it was for more than any other

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symptom and first and the most obvious indicator of a mental disturbance. Language seems to
reflect the chaotic and frustrated world of play. In the Renaissance’s narrowed space of
misunderstanding and misrepresenting diverse mental disorders, Shakespeare characterizes his
mentally unstable characters mostly through an uncontrollable and disturbing language. Thus, the
aim of this paper is to analyze the language or to be more precise, the speech of several mad
characters namely Ophelia, Hamlet and Lady Macbeth.

The play's plot begins with the appearance of three witches. They prophesy that Macbeth will be
the thane of Cawdor and finally king of Scotland. However, the obstacle on his way is King
Duncan. The prophecies that Macbeth quotes to her tempt Lady Macbeth. She desires the kingship
for him, and wants him to murder Duncan in order to gain power. Macbeth is intrigued by the
witches' prophecy and her wife, and commits the murder.
After the murder, Macbeth sees the ghost of Duncan and raves fearfully. Lady Macbeth,
meanwhile, is infected by hallucination. She starts sleepwalking. She believes that her hands are
bloodstained. Finally, she is affected by her conscience and becomes disappointed. Therefore, she
commits suicide, and ends her life.
At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is a sane and natural woman. She is a human with
conscience, not an evil person without feelings. She just has obsessive ambition to achieve
greatness, power, and respect. When she hears about the prophecies, the ambition for the crown
starts to inflame in her heart. This ambition grows and dominates her whole being and nothing can
stop her from moving toward her goal. She is intoxicated with her ambition. She wants to see her
dreams of reaching the highest social advancement by becoming queen, come true. If the witches'
prophecies are right, all her desires will be fulfilled. As H .B. Charlton suggests "To her the
prophecy of things that will be becomes instantaneously the determination that they shall be:
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised."
She constantly motivates to her husband Macbeth in committing Duncan‘s murder, she is the
Fourth witch. Nonetheless, she also appears to be the unsung tragic hero who suffers a tragic fall
and fatalistic end, often to some extent more intense than what Macbeth himself faces. Therefore,
it would be wrong to just claim Macbeth as the hero of the drama, Lady Macbeth, as well, is the
uncrowned hero of Shakespeare.

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Throughout the play, she tries so hard to be able to possess the ability to pursue her objectives with
greater determination. The greatest obstacle on her way is the king of Scotland that should be
removed. In order to kill the king, she tries to erase her tender feelings and maternal instincts with
the help of the witches.
There are a number of evidences, showing us that Lady Macbeth's violent feeling is due to her
abrupt ambition and boldness. She does not have undaunted mettle, and violence is not in her inner
nature. These evidences are she resorting to masculine roughness and her failed attempt to erase
her tenderness, and her apparent hallucination after the murder.

Objectives

1. To explain the Intrinsically Ruthless or Excessively Ambition of lady Macbeth

2. To describe mental disorders of Lady Macbeth
3. To elaborate connection between guilt and mental illness
4. Lady Macbeth as a Disruptive Force in Macbeth

Significance

In this paper, there is a module by which we can analyses any character of our society
psychologically.
This paper is helpful to understand that in what extent a human being go to fulfill his ambition
This paper might help in further researches on human instinct, desires and ambition and in
researches of social sciences.
It gives the new way to look characters and their actions, no one is good or bad that our instincts
which made us according to them. They can be good or evil.

Hypothesis

Lady Macbeth was an ideal wife having no ambition of her own but devoting herself to the sole
elevation of her beloved husband.

Lady Macbeth, as well, is the uncrowned hero of Shakespeare because of her guilt and suicidal
death.
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Research questions

1. Why Lady Macbeth motivates Macbeth to kill King Duncan?

2. Is she was disruptive force like three witches?
3. What are the causes behind the suicidal death of Lady Macbeth?
4. Why she invokes nature to make her a neuter and free her from the burdens of womanhood?

Research Gap

As this play was performed and written in renaissance, witchcraft, patriarchy, Lust for power,
knowledge, good and evil and the psychological interpretation were the important themes of that
era. On those themes there have been lot of researches have been conducted. Previous research has
also widely investigated the psychological characteristics of major characters. However, the results
obtained are inconclusive or even contradictory. Consequently, many researchers have concluded
that more research is needed in that area. In this research, I would explain and apply the
psychoanalysis theory by whole on a single character of Lady Macbeth. By this, I would try to
interpret it with a different angle.

Research Methodology

The research method applied in this research is qualitative. This method will prove to be a logical
and elucidative. This study will elaborate the concepts of psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud and
Julia Kristevia as it explored the desires, ambitions, madness and hysteria in Lady Macbeth. The
effects of patriarchal society are clearly depicted in this play through the acts of major characters
Lady Macbeth is one of the prominent in them. She shows the ambition for power and want to
become a Queen and for achieving power she provide continuous support and push Macbeth to
commit the devilish murder, makes her lofty character so unwomanly, rather so manly. Women of
16th -17th centuries were not expected to be so dramatic. The super patriarchal society of England

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epitomized the motherly, caring, nurturing, and the essential, feminine portraits of a Lady of the
house. Thus, Lady Macbeth appears to us as the ultimate exception who rips off her essential,
motherhood i.e. the milk of her breasts to be replaced with gall, in order to carry out her
determinations. This writing includes descriptive interpretative discourse analysis on “Macbeth”,
which involves reading, understanding, and giving meaning by interpreting the data.

One can see that Lady Macbeth's behavior is not common. Her inability to recognize the
seriousness of her part in the murder of Duncan is highlighted, and compounded, in her following
dialogue with Macbeth:

A little water clears us of this deed (II,ii,64).

Current study will deal with the consequences of ambition that proved to be a destructive force for
both major characters of the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It results in the form of hysteria and
after the entire tragic downfall e.g. the suicidal death of Lady Macbeth. According to Freud, there
is always a reason behind our actions that instigate to do something. There are three basic stages
of our mind conscious, unconscious and subconscious. This research will explore these stages of
mind of Lady Macbeth and what is going on in her conscious, unconscious. This research will deal
some mental disorders like Hysteria, Melancholy, Madness, Paranoia and insomnia due to the
ambitious nature of Lady Macbeth.

Literature Review

The following researches have been conducted on this particular topic the psychological study of
Lady Macbeth in the Shakespeare play Macbeth. There are some references taken from critical
books and research papers.
1. According to Shanley, Macbeth portrays “the paralyzing, almost complete destruction of
human spirit” (Shanley 307).
2. Hadfield said most of Shakespeare’s plays, Macbeth deals with the question of kingship
and portrays the “problems of legitimacy and succession” surrounding serious political
power that belonged to the monarch, the court and the royal councils (Hadfield 27).
Numerous historical and literary studies have been conducted about various topics in
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 Macbeth such as human desire, cruelty, and guilt. Gender role and its relation with power
also have a great significance to the interpretation of the play.

3. Ebrahem Sharifat said in his research previous psychoanalytical studies of Lady Macbeth
researchers have emphasized on the ambitious state, lust for power, famine aspects,
madness, sometimes denotes as the fourth witch of the play. She is also denotes as the force
to instigate the protagonist of the character Macbeth for the murder of King Duncan.
(Ebrahem Sharifat, Zari Dorri).
4. Psychoanalytical theory (originated by Sigmund Freud) examines the manifestation of
issues, which arise from a person's subconscious. According to Lois Tyson, In Critical
Theory Today, Freud believed that "the notion that human beings are motivated, even
driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware." Based upon this,
one could easily apply Psychoanalytical analysis to Shakespeare's Macbeth and
Lady Macbeth.
5. McDonald seems Shakespeare to examine the political succession of a male leader over a
female one in the play; the arguable demonization of Lady Macbeth might be seen as a
dramatization and unsettlement of maternity by patriarchal authority. In a patriarchal
society, men had dominant roles and they had a male heir and women were not expected
to go against patriarchal ruling; authority rested with the father, and the wife’s authority
was over children and the servants. (McDonald 256).
6. Berggren describes in his research Shakespeare shows the relationship between gender and
power, which can be related to the patriarchal discourse of early modern England. He
portrays women as major determinants in men’s actions but “their function varies
throughout the canon” and in distinct categories of either “good or evil, victims or
monsters” (Berggren 18, 11).
7. Neely claims that the madness represented in Shakespeare’s plays was constructed mostly
through the fragmented speech of the mad characters. Although it is difficult to define this
speech, it is “both something and nothing, both coherent and incoherent” (Neely, 1991:
323) and it is left to readers and viewers to construct it into the language of sanity.
In this study and the others related to this subject matter, researchers would be able to understand
the phenomenon of mind, especially some of the major mental disorders, which are faced by Lady

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Macbeth in the play. There is a great effort to analyze the Lady Macbeth character especially
psychologically, sociologically and politically. Prior to this research, there are lot of other
researches on these topics like psychological interpretation of Shakespeare’s characters. There we
always found an evil force, which caused for the destruction the Shakespeare major characters.
These types of researches help to utilize and polish the learning skills and the research process.
Helps to understand human actions and what the instincts behind those actions as well. Present
research deals with all the important aspects of Lady Macbeth character and tries to describe it
completely.

Psychological discussion of Lady Macbeth character

Lady Macbeth is indeed one of the most wonderful creations of Shakespeare‘s dramatic genius,
combining in her character two antithetical features. It‘s because of this double layered nature of
Lady Macbeth that injustice has been done to her character as a whole. Some regard her as the she
wolf, northern fury, persuading her otherwise virtuous husband Macbeth, to commit a diabolical
deed. Others take her as a fragile, beautiful, highly intellectual woman who is the Lady of the
house, pertaining to the very typified nuances of a married, upper class, elite Christian woman,
supplementing her husband’s so-called weakness by her moral strength and doing everything in
the capacity of an ideal wife, having no ambition of her own but dedicating herself to the sole
elevation of her beloved husband. The veracity lies between these two extremes and it is exactly
where the complications personal, and social, starts to play against each other, along with other
tropes such as sex, and gender. Lady Macbeth stands aloof in respect of her character from all
other creations of Shakespeare: she is a class apart. Coleridge states that “Of high rank, left much
alone, and feeding herself with dreams of ambition, she mistakes the courage of fantasy for the
power of bearing the consequences of realities of guilt….she shames her husband with super-
human audacity of fancy which she cannot support but sinks in the season of remorse, and dies a
suicidal tragedy”2. Her charactorial journey from a woman of extreme determination, unmoved
by petty distractions, providing continuous support and push Macbeth to commit the devilish
murder, makes her lofty character so unwomanly, rather so manly.

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An escape to masculinity

Lady Macbeth resorts to masculinity in order to acquire the courage to kill Duncan as she has an
insatiable greed for power. She is aware of her own nature and does not want to it permanently.
She merely wants to escape from her feelings and femininity for a short period. As Augustus Ralli
suggests:
Lady Macbeth's violent feeling was due to a passing exaltation; she had not foreseen one crime
would lead to others. She has not the calm energy of great criminals, but sudden impulse of
ambition and boldness. Lady Macbeth appears to us as the ultimate exception who rips off her
essential, motherhood i.e. the milk of her breasts to be replaced with gall, in order to carry out her
determinations, thus she states:
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;
It is at this very moment of the fiery speech, Lady Macbeth, urges the natural forces to unsex, her
and invokes nature to make her a neuter and free her from the burdens of womanhood.
Lady Macbeth‘s character is finally struck hard by the inevitable womanhood when she looks at
Duncan while attempting to kill him. She states:
Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had do not. (II.ii. – 15-16)
Lady Macbeth, here, while trying to uphold her collapsing husband, herself reveals and cracks in
the surface of her unsexed hardness. The woman in her is awake, wide; she is herself now afraid
to be driven to madness. Shakespeare makes it her lack of futuristic understanding of terrible
consequences, a reckless naïve mind of a woman, unaware and ignorant of the worldly redemption,
the sole cause of her nervousness, fury and horror of nature. We see a gradual ascendency of the
feminine in her while her masculine ‘nature fades away.

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Freud on Lady Macbeth

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis developed the concepts of psychosexual evolution.
This development involved a gradual shift to psychological analysis of the human mind and can
be seen in his famous “Studies in Hysteria” (1895) along with his other works such as
“Interpretation of dreams” (1899) “Three Essays on Theory of Sexuality‟ (1905) and many more
such milestone creations that has definitely shed light in the field of psychoanalytic work. He has
significantly contributed to his understanding of conscious and the unconscious parts of the mind.
Freud, during the course of time, has established a structural model of psychic analysis that is
known as the “The Ego and the Id” (1923). This contributory work put forward new terms known
as the Id, Ego and the Superego. The Id is known to comprise of the repressed unconscious while
the Super ego is associated with our conscience, which is formulated by the internalized rules
created by parents of society. These two extreme figments of the mind are unconscious projections
that govern the central Ego, which inevitably deals with the conscious, rational mind, shaping it
up to a large extent. Lady Macbeth is created out of an amalgamation of the Id and the Superego.
She is motivated initially by her Id that makes her unsex her womanhood and succumb to a devilish
deed but then towards the end of the drama it is her Superego that provides maximum contribution
in creating her Ego or the consciousness as she starts to sleepwalk and utters:

Out, damned spot! Out, I say!--One: two: why,

The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?--
What, will these hands ne'er be clean?
Here's the smell of the blood still: all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. Oh, oh, oh! ( V.II. 47-56)

Lady Macbeth's unknown, to her, conflict abruptly rises to the surface. She is seen sleepwalking
and trying to rub a "spot" to off her hand.

Out, damned spot! Out, I say (V,i, 35)!

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Here, her unconscious (the superego) has overpowered her conscious (the id and the ego). Even the
doctor, who has been sent to examine her, finds that

Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds

do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds
to their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets (V, i, 71-73).

In the end, it is the suppressed behavior of Lady Macbeth, which comes to the surface to wreak
havoc on her life and lead to her death. Only the application of Psychoanalytical analysis takes
into consideration the subconscious of a character and, therefore, can be an appropriate lens with
which the examine the character of Lady Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth is absolutely marred by the imaginative bloodstains that she imagines being
permanent in her hand, making it foul smelling. Her famous sleepwalking scene is a result of her
deeds and sets the culmination of a heroic Lady Macbeth. Her doctor describes her mind as infected
and her speeches as foul whisperings. She commits suicide in her frenzy and disillusionment thus
leading to her tragic fall.

Julia Kristevia on Lady Macbeth

The play offers an insight to hysterical female in Macbeth. Although it is most often defines as the
play of ambition, Lily Bess Campbell keenly asserts that it is a play about fear as equally as it is a
play about ambition. It is the fear that acts as a catalyst to the action because “from the murder of
Duncan onward, it is not ambition but fear that terrorizes its victims into action” (Campbell, 1930:
232). However, central to the analysis of speech in Kristevian terms, is the character of Lady
Macbeth, Shakespeare’s first female somnambulistic character. Shakespeare, most frequently
associates insomnia with unbearable ethical and political responsibility, i.e. with the characters
inability to cope with their political identities. Lady Macbeth a motherless witch a term, which
later developed into the female hysteria (Joanna Levin). Although hysteria as never mentioned in
the play, somnambulism was one of its most prominent features. Lady Macbeth is liable to the
analysis of fragmented language because she is the victim of hysteria. First, she experiences the
hysteria or madness and then at the end she commits suicide due to this fear.
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One of the most important feature of Lady Macbeth mental disorder is her speech. It is hysterical
and unconscious and shows a succumbing of a fragile female body to illness. As Kristevia sums
up, “the dead language they speak, which foreshadows their suicide, conceals a thing buried alive”
(Kristevia, 1989: 53). Lady Macbeth first appears in the fifth scene of the first act when she reads
her husband’s letter describing his encounter with three witches thus it is Macbeth who stirs the
ambitious obsession “and it is this obsession which furnishes the keynotes to the evaluation of the
mental disease of Lady Macbeth, finally dominating and overgrowing her entire personality”
(Coriat, 1921:37). Not until she receives the letter telling of the witches, prophecy does Lady
Macbeth daydream and plot about becoming a queen. She cling to the idea firmly and is
subsequently driven into hysteria when the plan seems to decay. Undoubtedly, it is her ambition
that leads her into hysteria. It could be said that Lady Macbeth’s character was made up out of two
different personalities: the first one appearing in her normal, waking state and the other appearing
the somnambulistic, sleeping state. Thus, her character was verging between two types of
consciousness and unconscious state.
Her speech in act I scene vii precisely denotes the transition from the conscious to unconscious,
somnambulistic state. As has already mentioned that Macbeth is more a play about fear than
ambition although it seems to be opposite, Lady Macbeth shows the features of cowardice. She is
a victim of her mind plotting ambitious plans for which she considers she has the will and the
power to put into practice. Nevertheless, it proves to be different. Due to the constant repression
of cowardice, crime and fear of failure she starts to suffer from somnambulism which “is most
marked form of this splitting of consciousness, and that is most liable to occur in the disease of
hysteria, which is in itself the form of dissociation” (Coriat, 1921:18). The doctor refers to this
state with a certain wonder referring to it as slumbary agitation: “A great perturbation in nature,-
to receive at/once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching!” (Macbeth IV, iii, 9-11).
According to doctor and the gentlewoman who acts as witness to her state, her eyes are open but
her senses are shut. Moreover, she frantically and repeatedly rubs her hands as a part of “an
accustomed action” (Macbeth, V, I, 28). Her fragmented speech is made up of different
reminiscences with an overtone of remorse, which is obvious in the next line ; “ Wash your hands,
put on your nightgown; look / not so pale: - I tell you yet again; Banquo’s / buried; he cannot
come out ones grave “(Macbeth, V , I, 59). Her memory is chaotic with images of crimes coming
before her eyes and this chaos evident in her speech. The complete disintegration of her character

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happens in her last line, abounding in repetition: “to bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate; /
come, come, come, come, give me your hand: / what’s done cant undone: to bed, to bed, to bed”
(Macbeth, V, I,63.).

Limitations

One of the major limitation of this study is its generalizability it cannot be applicable for all women
of patriarchal society. There are lot of women in our society who are suppressed and do not do
anything like Lady Macbeth. Not everyone became that much ambitious and selfish like Macbeth
and Lady Macbeth.

Conclusion

This paper aimed to study Lady Macbeth in deep, and tried to focus on her reactions and dialogues
to see the traces of purity and feminine emotions. Having analyzed ambition for power of the main
characters in Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’. I can draw some conclusions. First, a person who has a
great ambition to fulfill but using evil means to reach it will destroy his or her own life at last. This
happens to Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth. Macbeth has a great ambition to be a king as the
witches prophecies supported and encouraged by his natural event (his rise to power as a soldier)
and his wife. However, he does not find the best way in fulfilling his ambition except doing an evil
way, through a murder and Lady Macbeth prepares him for this sinful act. His wife, Lady Macbeth,
is as ambitious as her husband is. She always encourages him to do the evil way, for there is no
other good chance for them. Then, they carry out the crime together by murdering the king and
Macbeth succeeds to be the new King of Scotland. Because of their evil way in fulfilling their
ambition, they always live in fear and suffering.

Second, the power does not come easily. It must be achieved with all efforts. It demands ruthless
and excessive ambitious personality to attain power. As Lady Macbeth persuade her husband to
kill King Duncan by this way, she can entertain the powers of Queen. Third, a person who has
done evil ways in fulfilling his or her ambition cannot conceal them forever and he/she will get
into a great suffering as the result. Macbeth and his wife have done evil ways in fulfilling their
ambitions and they cannot conceal their evil deeds any longer. Lady Macbeth’s truth revealed by
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her actions, emotions, hysteria, madness, sleepwalking and melancholy. Due to this hysteria and
guilt, she met her suicidal death. By this analysis, we can conclude that there is a reason behind
every action.

References

1. Berggren Paula S. “The Women’s Part: Female Sexuality as Power in Shakespeare

Plays” The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare Ed. Carolyn Ruth Swift
Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely. Urbana; Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, (1980), pp. 323
2. Charlton, H.B. Shakespearian Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University (1948),pp.
211-225
3. Cariot H. Hysteria of Lady Macbeth, Yard and company, New York
4. Campbell, L.B. (1921) Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes Slave of Passion, Cambridge
University Press, New York (1921), pp. 232
5. Freud, S. Femininity (1933)
6. Freud, S. The Ego and the Id (1923)
7. Freud, S. Some Character-types Met With In Psycho-analytical Work (1916)
8. Freud, S. Those Wrecked by Success (1916)
9. Hadfield Andrew. Shakespeare and Renaissance Politics. London: Arden
Shakespeare (2004), p. 30-70
10. Kristevia, J. Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, Columbia University Press,
New York (1989), pp. 25-54
11. Levin, J. Lady Macbeth and the Demonology of Hysteria‟ (2002). p. 21-55
12. McDonald, R. The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: an Introduction with
Documents. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press; Basingstoke: Macmillan,
(1996), p. 256
13. Ralli, A. A History of Shakespearian Criticism. New York: The Humanities p, 1965.
14. Shanley J. Lyndon. “Macbeth: The Tragedy of Evil” College English (1961), p. 305-
311
15. Whitehurst, W. In Defense of Lady Macbeth‘(1973) Shakespeare Quarterly. United
Kingdom, P. 221-223

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