Soliloquy Analysis

Lady Macbeth's Soliloquy

Act 1 Scene 5: 

The Raven Himself Is Hoarse

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. 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! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'


               By Lady Macbeth saying these words, it could mean she is trying to challenge manhood to try and make Macbeth prove to her that he is a man and will make him want to commit the murder.  She sees her feminine sex as an obstacle to being courageous and evil enough to do what must be done.  This could also mean she is calling upon evil spirits or dark powers, asking for strength and to remove her soft feminine qualities so she can act in a brutal way with Macbeth for the throne.

Checked by: Chaz Gutmanis