Is Lady Macbeth a Machiavellian character?

Lady Macbeth was completely cruel and heartless. Throughout the play, we do not see much of a touch of humanity in her, and perhaps her only good quality was that she used to love her husband with all her heart and soul. Besides that, we do not see any other good qualities in her. At every step of the play, we can see her cruelty. She encourages Macbeth to kill the king. There was not a single bit of kindness or compassion in her, and we rarely see a woman as cruel as her in a play.

To understand the psychological state of Lady Macbeth, her soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 5 is very important. In this soliloquy, we see that Macbeth writes her a letter from the battlefield. In this letter, he informs her about the prophecy of the witches. The witches prophesied that Macbeth would become a king, and Lady Macbeth became overjoyed upon reading the letter. However, according to the norms of that era, it was impossible for Macbeth to become a king. This letter demonstrates Macbeth’s deep love and unwavering trust for his wife. This is because, if the contents of the letter had been leaked somehow, Macbeth’s inevitable punishment would have been death. After reading this letter, Lady Macbeth, alongside being overjoyed, begins to think about how she can help her husband succeed on this path. Not even once did it occur to her that it was legally impossible to make Macbeth king. Rather, her cruel thoughts became even stronger, and from then on, she began to think with all her heart and soul about how to remove the king and make Macbeth king. This soliloquy highlights the distinct character traits of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

We can describe Lady Macbeth as a manly woman. Although she was a woman, she did not exhibit any of the typical characteristics of a woman. She did not have any woman-like charm, sweetness, or softness in her. Rather, she had the mental strength of a brave warrior. She did not hesitate to make any harsh and cruel decisions at any time, and she did not care about how much harm this caused to others. In other words, Lady Macbeth should have been a soldier. Perhaps, if she had lived in this era, she would have become a soldier, and her psychology is like that of a soldier.

When a soldier takes part in a war, he does not consider what is right or wrong. He must fight and help his side win the war. If his side wins, peace and happiness come to his heart. But if his side loses, he feels pain and sorrow. Lady Macbeth possessed this kind of psychology, and if we consider it from this perspective, she can be described as a Machiavellian character. The main principle of Machiavellian characters is that “the end justifies the means” — that is, the objective must be achieved at any cost. The thought came to Lady Macbeth’s mind that she must make her husband king, and after that, she had no other thoughts. She had only one thing on her mind: how she could make her husband king. For this, she committed unethical and immoral acts at every step and encouraged her husband to do the same. Sometimes, it felt as if Lady Macbeth were the husband and Macbeth were the wife. 

Is Lady Macbeth a villain in the play Macbeth?

William Shakespeare’s one of the most famous tragedies is Macbeth. Although Macbeth himself is the central character of the play, the role of Lady Macbeth is no less significant. Lady Macbeth can be considered the most powerful and strong-willed among Shakespeare’s female characters. Although she is primarily a negative character, her personality traits and the psychological treatment of her character have made her highly important, and both readers and audiences remain deeply inquisitive about her.

From a psychological point of view, Lady Macbeth is considered an interesting character, even though we do not see any such qualities in her throughout the play. However, a combination of many characteristics is found in her, and Shakespeare has tried to portray this character beautifully and with considerable depth. To the audience of that era, Lady Macbeth may have seemed like a negative character who was the main villain of the play. In the play Macbeth, there is no villain in the true sense, because if we consider Macbeth as the hero, then we cannot consider anyone else as the villain, since it is Macbeth himself who commits all the evil deeds in the play. Moreover, Lady Macbeth can be identified as the main villain because she had no good qualities and encouraged and supported Macbeth in carrying out all the evil acts. Sometimes, when necessary, she actively tried to take action herself. Therefore, if we judge Lady Macbeth from a modern perspective, she must be regarded as an interesting character.

The first thing that will catch everyone’s attention is that she was a very powerful woman. In those days, women did not have much freedom, and in England or Europe, they could not even keep any property in their possession. Once women got married, they would come under the authority of their husbands, and this was the normal situation. Whether rich or poor, women, in the true sense, did not have much personal freedom or power of their own. Lady Macbeth was quite exceptional in this regard, and on the one hand, she was a very powerful woman. Her power did not come from winning wars or wealth, but from her personality. We do not find women with such a powerful personality in today’s world. Shakespeare showed this woman’s power through her intelligence. That is, Lady Macbeth was intelligent, and she knew how to influence her husband. Therefore, even though there was a king in England, the reality is that Lady Macbeth was more powerful than the king.

It has been said earlier that Lady Macbeth did not become powerful by winning battles or by acquiring wealth. She became powerful through the strength of her own intelligence. That is why she had a great deal of inner strength, and inner strength is a very important quality in a person. When a person does not have much, he or she can overcome many limitations with that inner strength and move forward in life. So, we must remember this quality of Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare has portrayed this inner strength in several ways. We see that she herself began to believe that her husband would become king, and for this reason, she started thinking about how to make her husband king. Though it was impossible in those days—because the king was alive and the prince was supposed to become king after him—still, Lady Macbeth did not give up hope and tried to find a way to put her husband in power.