Does Shakespeare present Lady Macbeth as fiendlike?

Shakespeare coursework: MACBETH

Does Shakespeare present Lady Macbeth as fiendlike?

Lady Macbeth is Macbeth’s wife. Her role in the play is to be a controversial character, especially in Shakespeare’s time as women are at the bottom of the Chain of Being but Lady Macbeth acts like she is at the top. The word ‘fiendlike’ suggests evilness and craftiness. Fiend means devil, demon, evil spirit or a person addicted to something. Generally Lady Macbeth might be regarded as fiendlike as she says and does a lot of evil things but is also sometimes gentle and caring at the end of the play.

Her character is very ambiguous so the audience can decide for themselves whether she is evil or not. Simple characters are very boring whereas complicated characters such a Lady Macbeth are more exciting. Other characters that could be considered fiendlike are the witches and Macbeth. However, we cannot compare Lady Macbeth with the witches because we don’t know enough about them. We can ...