The Sinister Roles of Women in Macbeth Reading Shakespeare's tragic drama Macbeth, you encounter only one good woman: Lady Macduff. The remaining female characters are fundamentally evil. We consider mainly Lady Macduff and only briefly the three witches. Blanche Coles states in Shakespeare's Four Giants that Macbeth's wife had considerable power over her husband's mind: This was her opportunity to do what she had promised herself to do after reading the letter. - pour out his spirit in his ear, chastise with the valor of his tongue everything that could prevent him from leaving the golden crown. We can be sure that he took this opportunity to use all his monstrous powers of persuasion. So he urged himself, or was urged by his wife, to seal the terrible oath, whether he had any clear intention of keeping it or not. (48-49) In his book, On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy, H. S. Wilson mentions the very wife-like manner in which the queen fulfills her essential role in tragedy: It requires an extraordinary effort of will and persuasion on the part of Lady Macbeth to strengthen his faltering purpose. Professor Kittredge used to point out in his lectures that Lady Macbeth, to incite Macbeth to act, uses the three arguments that every wife, at one time or another, uses with every husband: "You promised me you would!" “You would if you loved me!” “If I were a man, I would do it myself!” But Macbeth's decision is made by his certainty that they will be able to do so safely by placing the blame on Duncan's chamberlains. (72) In Fools of Time: Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy, Northrop Frye shows that a woman is the true driving force of the play: That Macbeth is forced by his wife to perform a premature act is a point unlikely to escape the most lazy member. of the audience, but Macbeth comes to regret the moment of the fatal delay in the murder of Macduff, and draws the moral that the fickle purpose is never achieved unless action accompanies it. From this moment the firstborn of my heart will be the firstborn of my hand. That is, in the future he will try to achieve the spontaneous pace of action of the successful ruler. (91)LC Knights in the essay "Macbeth" describes the unnaturalness in the thoughts and words of the play's dominant female force, Lady Macbeth: