5 Most Evil Charachters in Literature pt. 2; Lady Macbetj

This article is referring to Lady Macbeth in the first two acts of the play, but mainly the first, as she eventually takes her life out of guilt, displaying at least some kind of remorse for her actions.

I've always found Lady Macbeth to be one of Shakespeare's most fascinating characters. She is in many ways a Femme Fatale, the way she tempts Macbeth to commit the heinous act of murder for her own personal gain and Macbeth's eventual destruction, but she is also kind of de-sexified. Many critics have talked about her being an "anti-mother", especially for the part in the play when she asks to be de-sexed and of course the infamous line about wanting to bash in the brains of the baby who sucks from her breast. These lines were particularly hideous for early Modern England, a country with mother issues anyways (they still have a queen yknow). She wants power, and wants to take it with dominance usually associated with males in Shakespeare. But, she her power is still maternal, acting as a guide for Macbeth's tremendously powerful ambition. She brings us images of motherhood, but they are evil and destructive images. When she wants to be un-sexed, I have always felt she was asking to have the rotten feelings of human compassion stripped away from her, as those emotions are usually associated with maternity.

Many critics say Lady Macbeth is a classic witch. Critic Joanna Levin defines a witch as a woman that succumbs to satanic force, a lust for the devil, and who, either for this reason or the desire to obtain supernatural powers, invokes (evil) spirits. Lady Macbeth conjures the evil spirits, "the three witches", that show Macbeth his path that leads him to murder and eventually self--destruction. She uses her lust for supernatural power as a means of getting ahead of Macbeth, and also attacks his masculinity, making her the dominant force in the relationship. Her desire is absolute power, and she seeks to attain that goal in a single minded fashion. To me, Lady Macbeth is act one only is beaten by Othello's Iago (I'll get to him soon) in terms of Shakespeare's most sinister characters.