Character analysis of Lady Macbeth: The fourth witch or a loving wife?

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is made to act as a catalyst in Lord Macbeth's evil doings. She has definitely the greatest ambition, supremacy of will, cruelty and dissimulation among Shakespearean heroines. She obviously does not lack courage. She has a paucity of intellect. She shows enormous self-control, but very little skill. To Bradley, the laying of the bloody daggers on the pillows of the grooms, as if they were determined to advertise their guilt, was a mistake on her part, which can be explained only to her lack of intellect. In comparison with her husband, she appears extremely dull.   

Even though Macbeth is generally the one to have the final say in the many killings that take place in the play, Lady Macbeth plays the role of a villain alongside him. If Macbeth frets over something she has instructed him to do, she mocks him by saying that he would be less of a man if he does not follow their plan. She gives Macbeth a short lecture in deceptiveness when they are planning to kill king Duncan. She also prepared the daggers for Macbeth in order to kill Duncan. Though her husband was still having doubts, she was, in the most literal sense, ready to go in for the murder.

Throughout the play and leading up to her eventual suicide, Lady Macbeth slowly weakens. Yet, in the beginning of the play, she acts as if she is unstoppable. When Macbeth has his doubts and fears about murdering the king, Lady Macbeth chastises him; calling him everything from a coward to a helpless baby. She even offers to do it herself, possibly to make Macbeth feel that he is even more cowardly because a woman is offering to do his job. This pushes Macbeth to kill, though these are the actions that will eventually lead to both of their demises later in the play. Macbeth tries to convince Lady Macbeth, as well as himself, that she is wrong. However, Macbeth does not seem to fully convince her, because he is still mocked by his wife. Whether he failed to convince himself or to convince his lady is irrelevant; he goes through with the murder anyhow.

Not only does Lady Macbeth push her husband to do things he does not want to, but also she informs him that his face is too easy to read. Of course, she does not want her husband or herself to get caught, so she gives him advice in the area of deceptiveness-

''...look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under't.''

Even before that early point in the play, Lady Macbeth has already demonstrated that she is two-faced. When Duncan first arrives at the castle, Lady Macbeth acts as a welcome hostess, when in reality she has different plans for Duncan.

Usually, though she has to nudge her husband a bit before he takes action, Macbeth is relatively obedient. Lady Macbeth seems to realize that her husband probably will not go through with the murder of Duncan until she pushes him to the point of no return, so she prepares everything in advance. All Macbeth has to do for his part in the murder is actually kill Duncan: Lady Macbeth sets out the daggers and gives the guards enough alcohol so that they pass out. She was so eager to have Duncan dead that she almost killed him herself-

“...Had he not resembled

My father as he slept, I had done't”

She lacks Macbeth's imagination. This makes her ideal for prompt action, but is a flop for longer strategy. She is unable to see the impact of Duncan's murder, and is unable to fully understand Macbeth's inward consequence after the murder. She would have never urged him to murder Duncan if she realised the monster her husband would become. This lack of imagination proves fatal to her. Her facile realism ''a little water clears us of this deed'' soon changes to despair as she utters-

''What, will these hands, ne'er be clean?''

...

''All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.''

This is the exact opposite of the reaction of murder on Macbeth, who becomes a brute.

The change in her state of mind is inevitable. When the hideousness of murder pricks her consciousness, her nature begins to sink. She becomes a somnambulist, because of her inner guilt. The sinking of Lady Macbeth's nature brings pathos mingled with awe. The energetic, supremely willed woman is now submissive and listless.

Lady Macbeth stands apart among Shakespearean heroines in the intensity and perplexity of interest that she arises. She has a strange kind of fascination of character. For someone so fragile, she has an indomitable will. As a critic wrote- ''Lady Macbeth was a lady, beautiful and delicate, whose one vivid passion proves that her organization was instinct with nerve-force.'' Considering this critical estimate, it is evident that she was not a fiend, but a woman who believes that her husband is the greatest enough in the world, fit enough to be king, it is not a fiendish trait, though its execution may be abhorring to our sensibilities.