A Freudian Perspective of Lady Macbeth

The year was 1923 and a young Austrian psychiatrist published “The Ego and the Id,” creating a new theory on the human psyche. Sigmund Freud theorized that a human’s personality had three distinct components: the id, ego, and super-ego. Ones impulses, drives, and desires are a part of the id, operating on a pleasure/pain principle (“Id”). Left unchecked these impulses would attempt to satisfy their urges immediately with no regard to consequences. On the other hand, the ego is rooted on the “reality” principle, limiting the id's behaviors and determining what is appropriate based on social conventions (“Ego”). Three hundred years prior, William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth , a tragic tale of where ones unchecked and unadulterated desires can lead to. Lady Macbeth acts as a sophisticated Freudian id to Macbeth’s ego, taking action to reach her aims, with no understanding of the true ramifications of her immorality.

The concept of being the queen, and the immediate pleasure associated with it, turns Lady Macbeth into an uninhibited id, seeking only to achieve the crown with little care for the consequences. To accomplish this, she has to prepare herself; she needs to be strong, willful, and manipulative, so that she can incite Macbeth into killing King Duncan. Lady Macbeth first appears in the play after receiving a letter from her husband detailing the witch's prophesies. There is little doubt in Lady Macbeth's mind that her husband will be King: “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shall be / What thought art promised” (31; I.5.15-16). She is keenly aware of Macbeth's weaknesses, that he is “too full o' th' milk of human kindness” (31; I.5.17), and though he doesn't lack the ambition, he lacks “the illness should attend it” (31; I.5.20). Macbeth possesses courage, compassion, loyalty to the crown, and other traits that are not befitting a man that must take matters into his own hands. Lady Macbeth must, in essence, become the man of action. To do so she calls upon evil spirits to aid her:

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. (33; I.5.47-50)

It is absolutely essential for her to be barren of female qualities – no compassion, no kindness, and no pity. She needs to attain a level of intense cruelty, eliminating all traces of womanhood, especially since Macbeth has some of those traits already.

With a firm understanding of what actions need to be accomplished, Lady Macbeth begins to attack the rational thoughts and moral conscience that plague Macbeth's mind. After King Duncan arrives at Iverness, Macbeth begins to question his motives, “He's here in double trust” (39; I.7.12) and Macbeth, being both a kinsmen and host, believes he should “Not bear the knife myself” (39; I.7.16). Duncan has been “clear in his great office, that his virtues / Will please like angels” (39; I.7.18-19). Macbeth's prudence and understanding of wronging his King, and the possibility of being caught as the King's murderer, has caused him to call off the whole affair. His rational mind, his ego, has entered into the world of reality, where being simply the Thane of Cawdor is fine enough. Lady Macbeth will have none of it though. She questions him, asking “What beast was't, / then / That made you break this enterprise to me?” (43; I.7.53-55), with the only explanation being the emergence of Macbeth's ego offering the rational and realistic view points on how this murder may effect him. In one of the more startling phrases from the play, Lady Macbeth swears that she would never promise an enterprise to Macbeth and then change her mind:

I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me.
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this. (43; I.7.62-67)

She forcefully asks Macbeth to simply “screw your courage to the sticking place / And we'll not fail” (43; I.7.70-71). The task is to be done, and Macbeth will do it with the help of his wife. The tell-tale words of “we’ll not fail” make it clear that they are now acting as one to achieve the goal of attaining Scotland's crown and fulfilling the witch's prophesy.

Lady Macbeth is not simply a manipulative wife, nor is she without action; she is willing to take part not only in the plotting, but the killing of King Duncan, as an effort to thrust Macbeth along in their plans and fulfill her desires. One of her greatest concerns is Macbeth's frequent bouts with his conscience. To initiate the plot Lady Macbeth drugs the grooms guarding Duncan's sleep and places the daggers in the room, preparing everything for her husband. She is excited, drunk with boldness and passionate in her cause, allowing every fiber of her being the satisfaction of acting upon her desires. When Macbeth enters the scene he is horrified at what he's done, unable to speak “’Amen” / When they [guards] did say ‘God bless us’” (57; II.2.39-40). Her manipulation has to sooth his mind, while also calling into question his manhood. Once again Lady Macbeth is in the position of having to quell his weakness, asking that he “Consider it not so deeply” (57; II.2.41) and taunting his fear of the carnage created with a question of his manhood once again - “'Tis the eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil” (59; II.2.70-71). She suggests he act naturally, accept his fate, and simply wash away the deed with a little water. The murder has been trivialized by Lady Macbeth, allowing a rationality and logic for her husband to accept, effectively conquering his ego.

The actions of Lady Macbeth and her husband have led to victory: Macbeth has achieved the crown and his resolve to keep it is strong. What is significant in the text, and in Freud's theory on human personality, is that the id, left unchecked, will cause destruction and despair. This revelation for the audience occurs with Lady Macbeth's sleep-walking. Up until this point she has been unflinching in her purpose, filled with “direst cruelty”, manipulating and goading Macbeth into the actions she deems fit. Now she is in distress, her unconscious guilt coming to the forefront of her mind and acting itself out in the open. She wants the blood off her hands, commanding it “Out, damned spot, out, I say!” (163; V.1.36) and wondering how Duncan could “have had so much blood in him?” (163; V.1.43). We see a woman whose soul is broken, whose own actions have caused her the inability to sleep peacefully; she is being punished by her own soul. In her ramblings she recalls all of the wickedness in the play: the letter from her husband, Duncan’s blood on their hands, the Thane of Fife’s wife, Banquo’s death – all of the evil deeds that flourished under her ambition. Lady Macbeth, who started the entire endeavor to kill Duncan and fulfill her ambitions, has shown that evil deeds do not go unpunished.

The tale of Macbeth extends past the normal concept of tragedy, offering the audience and readers a story that transcends our normal definitions of ambition, desire, and consequence. We are given a glimpse into lives that although could have been originally well intentioned, turned into cruel, malevolent creatures. Lady Macbeth, in all her horrific glory, travels down the path of destruction and suffers the consequences for it. Macbeth is a tale that reveals what can occur when ones id, ones inner most ambitions and desires, are left to its own devices.

“Ego.” Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology. Ed. Bonnie Strickland. 2^nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 208. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Lansing Community College Library. 9 February 2008 <http://find.galegroup.com >.

“Id.” Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology. Ed. Bonnie Strickland. 2^nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 323. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Lansing Community College Library. 9 February 2008 <http://find.galegroup.com >.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat et al. New York. Washington Square Press, 1992.