Lady Macbeth, Ruthless Murderess or Career Scapegoat
Lady Macbeth, Ruthless Murderess or Career Scapegoat

Summary/Abstract: Our paper seeks to investigate Lady Macbeth’s critical career, focusing on her hypostases, as they emerge from various readings of Shakespeare’s text. Following the motif of the double present in the play, the critical images of Lady Macbeth’s character oscillate between the magically empowered ruthless murderess at the beginning of the play and the passive carrier of her husband’s guilt. The article offers two other interpretations of the character, based on Roger Caillois’ study on the praying mantis and on the Derridean concept of pharmakos, respectively. The research also dwells on the relationship between the critical approaches to Lady Macbeth’s character and the evolution of social attitudes towards women.

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