Lady Macbeth’s Struggle Within

In Act 1, Scene 5 Lady Macbeth gives her “unsex” me speech, as Professor Little affectionately labels it, she is petitioning the spirits to take away from her what makes her a woman-her blood flow or menstrual cycle. In Lady Macbeth’s eyes to be a woman equated weakness and she did not want to be thought of as weak. In lecture Professor Little states that the tragedy with her is that in the end she realizes that she is still a woman despite her seductive plea to the spirits to “unsex me here” . . . “Stop up th’access . . .”

Melanie C. Austin