Sunday, October 20, 2013
"From the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty"
When Lady Macbeth reads the letter from Macbeth she's told how Macbeth was addressed as the Thane of Cawdor. She knows it will happen but she fears that he's too loyal, honorable and noble to overthrow King Duncan. So when she finds out that King Duncan is coming she wants all traces of kindness, compassion, remorse, and womanly feeling taken out so that she can be ruthless and kill King Duncan and not feel regret to help her husband be king and become greater. I thought during Shakespeare's time this would've been completely different from how woman are looked upon because they would've been viewed as kind and weak beings but she wants to become a ruthless cold-hearted killer willing to remove her feminine traits to help her husband become king, in the process changing her. She wanted to change so no feelings of compassion or pity could stop her from killing the king. In her whole speech she wants to attain a level of cruelty to kill that not even a higher being can tell her to stop.
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I also thought that this was really interesting. A woman was not looked at as a figure of power during this time which is why it was so unusual for Lady Macbeth to act as one. It really shows kind of a 'behind the scenes look' at how Shakespeare thought women were doing this time period.
ReplyDeleteI agree too about how Lady Macbeth is a look in Shakespearean times the idea of how woman could be different than the feminine house hold woman. But its interesting on the words you use to describe her because i didn't think such strong words like "ruthless" or "cold-hearted".
ReplyDeleteTHAT LAST LINE WAS REAL COLD, BRUH. REAL METAPHYSICAL. YOU THINK GOVERNMENT LEADERS THAT DECIDE WARS AND GENERALS AND THE LIKE HAVE ACHIEVED THIS LEVEL? IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE? I DON'T EVEN WANNA KNOW THE ANSWERS
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