The Dichotomy of “Witch” and “Mother” and the Plight of Lady Macbeth

While modern sensibilities claim a wide array of roles and identities for women, current feminine archetypes are still heavily influenced by those of the past. Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, portrays a dichotomous archetype of what an ideal woman should be against that of what a woman would be if she does not uphold that archetype. Through understanding the character of Lady Macbeth and her relationship to others in the play, we can better understand Shakespeare’s commentary on the toxicity which can emerge as a result from the failure to uphold these societal constructs. Lady Macbeth’s position as wife and woman stand in contrast to Shakespearean-era definitions of femininity. Her ultimate downfall emerges from her inability to reconcile the competing desires for power with her womanishness.

According to Joanna Levin, author of Lady MacBeth and the Daemonologie of Hysteria, Shakespearean era representations of femininity “came to emphasize the good mother over and against the threatening witch, the hysteric stood as an intermediary figure.” Lady Macbeth plays the intermediary between the evil characters of the Wyrd sisters, the witches who prophesy of Macbeth’s future crown, and that of Lady Macduff, the wife of Lord Macduff, who is a fiercely protective mother. According to Levin, Lady Macbeth displays “features of both prototypes, [through which] she expose[s] the instability of patriarchal classifications” (38). Within the context of Shakespearean-era ideology, the perception of a woman who does not uphold the archetype of mother, nurturer, and wife, was changing from “that of 'powerful and threatening witch' to that of 'hysterical woman’" (23). This idea of “hysteria” was another patriarchal attempt to suppress women and downplay their needs and desires and to emphasize "women's (subordinate) place in marriage." Levin goes on to describe this archetypal woman as “patronized rather than feared, consigned to an involuted private sphere of sentiment, morality, and nurture; she consents to her own subjection through the insidious workings of ideological belief.” Lady Macbeth, As we will see, manifests the frustration of this role and her desires to transcend are taken to such an extreme that it destroys her.

In stark contrast to Lady Macbeth is Lady Macduff, who displays characteristics of the societal constructs of ideal mother and wife. She is a domestic and caring mother, but has no respect or notice from her husband, who flees the country. Lady Macbeth believes her husband to be too full of the “milk of human kindness,” while Lady Macduff is furious at her husband for his unkind abandonment of his family without a second thought (I, v, 17). Lady Macduff’s maternal instincts contrast starkly with Lady Macbeth's assertion that she would dash her child's brains out rather than give up her ambitions (Fawkner 4). Lady Macduff, the image of mother in this play, stands in contrast to Lady Macbeth, who, as Isador Coriat opines, "Lady Macbeth's hysteria and somnambulism arose from a repressed wish for a child, and Freud himself also diagnoses Shakespeare's tragic villainess, writing, "Lady Macbeth's illness . . . could be explained directly as a reaction to her childlessness" (Levin 43). Whereas Lady Macduff stands on one end of the spectrum here, the Wyrd Sisters stand on the other end.

In her essay on Jacobean witchcraft, Stephanie Spoto states that “the witch occupies the wicked opposite of the ideal mother/housewife, therefore operating as a figure of the ‘anti-housewife.’” This foil stands in stark contrast to Lady Macduff and Lady Macbeth, who although she has conjured such evil spirits, does not fully land in the category of “witch,” thus confusing her identity and leading to her downfall. The “image of the breastfeeding mother,” one which we will see is a definitive image for both witch and mother alike, holds a meaningful point for the purposes of understanding this dichotomous relationship between witch and mother:

[It] is inverted into a Maternal Witch whose breasts give only sour or rancid blood, or in the case of Lady Macbeth, inconsumable gall … This corporeal inconstancy leads the imagination to conjure up the supposition that what is nurturing and wholesome can be potentially and unexpectedly shifted into something dreadful and foul. However, it is also a conjuration of power, and the witch was representative of a female power that disturbs predominant societal norms (Spoto 66).

Through this, we can better understand that the relationship between “witch” and “mother” is deeply intertwined with the womanish characteristic of nurture. Thus we can better understand Lady Macbeth’s relationship to this dichotomy through her own maternal characteristics.

Lady Macbeth’s lust for power and brutality leads to her conjuring of evil spirits and ultimate death. We see that in Act I, as Lady Macbeth pushes her husband to kill Duncan and seize the throne. "When you durst do it,” she says to Macbeth, “then you were a man; / And to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man" (I, ii, 49-51). In belittling her husband’s manhood, Lady Macbeth reveals ambition which is inappropriate for a woman at that time. She “directs her desire away from Macbeth and towards an image of his future glory … Produced by Lady Macbeth's maternal imagination, the monstrous Macbeth becomes the offspring of a disorderly feminine imagination” (Levin 42). When Macbeth shows weakness and is unable to murder the king, Lady Macbeth becomes frustrated that she cannot simply do it herself.

Lady Macbeth wants nothing more than to leave her femininity and become uncaring and vicious. “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts,” she intones, “unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood. Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between th’ effect and it” (I, v, 47-54). Lady Macbeth wishes to be free of any compassionate and stereotypically feminine characteristics so that she may help her husband become king and not feel the feminine guilt she ascribes to herself. According to Spoto, Lady Macbeth “demands to become un-gendered, un-feminized, and dematernalized. Her milk, a traditional symbol of motherhood and fertility, becomes the food of demons, forsaking the possibility of human offspring and reproduction as she has become 'unsexeď and her breasts become promised to the possessing spirits” (66). Lady Macbeth thus crosses the threshold from “mother” to “witch,” and with this her mental stability begins to fade as well.

Lady Macbeth shows the characteristics of one who would go to any lengths to see Macbeth become queen. She casts aside her image of mother and nurturer in favor of this power. She echoes the characteristics of witchcraft and devil worship “when she invites the evil spirits to nurse at her breast and offers her reproductive capabilities for demonic ends.” The juxtaposition of witchcraft and maternal instinct is where Lady Macbeth stands throughout the play. The brutality of her language shows how willing she is and how weak her husband is in comparison when she declares that if it were her task, she would “have plucked my nipple from [my baby’s] boneless gums / and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you / have done to this” (I, vii, 64-67). According to Levin, Lady Macbeth thus “becomes the topos of perverse mothering. Witches were not the only women to threaten the patriarchal order” (41).

Lady Macbeth begins to feel guilty about her and her husband’s deeds in the start of Act III. This is the foundation of her undoing because although she has not yet succumbed, the seeds of her guilt have been planted. She ruminates, “Naught’s had, all’s spent, where our desire is got without content. ‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy” (III, ii, 6-9). Lady Macbeth speaks in poetic verse, but her guilt and shame are slowly creeping in. It is even better to be the person who is murdered than the murderer and tormented with anxiety. However, later in the scene, Lady Macbeth regains composure for others and bottles her worries and remorse so that she may not seem weak or at fault.

In the beginning of Act V, Lady Macbeth’s guilt has progressed to the breaking point. “Out damned spot,” She says, as she imagines blood all over her hands. “Out, I say! One. Two. Why then, ‘tis time to do ‘t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? what need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (V, i, 37-42). Lady Macbeth feels so guilty that she is driven insane and imagines blood to be all over her hands, even though it is not there. Lady Macbeth is no longer speaking in poetic verse, but rather she speaks in prose. This shows that Lady Macbeth has reached her breaking point because she is no longer composed in her usual, formal speech. Thus we see the end of Lady Macbeth’s life.

It is through the downfall of Lady Macbeth that we can better understand the difficult societal norms for women in the Shakespearean Era. According to John Metcalf, “the prevailing witchcraft beliefs of Renaissance England In 1605-06, combined with Shakespeare's perceptions of King James, constituted a major Incentive for the creation of Macbeth” (52). It is clear that the Bard is attempting to make a commentary on societal constructs of femininity and the toxicity that prevails as a result. The dichotomous relationship between that of “mother” and “witch” are what confuses and eludes lady Macbeth, who straddles the line between the two. In today’s society, it is far easier for a woman to define for herself who she is without the threat of being villanized as “witch.” a woman’s success is not tied to whom she marries or whether she chooses to have children. The character of the ambitious Lady Macbeth is a result of her internal struggle to simultaneously uphold societal expectations of femininity and her own desires. This internal strife and moral struggle is what leads to Lady Macbeth’s downfall. This strife was borne out of a society which would never accept Lady Macbeth’s desires. Thus she was driven mad by her own guilt and inability to fulfill such expectations.