Hell Is Murky!

HOST (George):
In Macbeth, evil rarely arrives waving a pitchfork; it arrives wearing a suit and offering a reasonable argument that elections are no longer necessary.
That’s how it works in public life—and it’s how it works in this play.

And Lady Macbeth is the clearest example.

Here’s the main idea of this episode.

Lady Melania - I mean lady macbeth -doesn’t begin as a monster. She begins as a person who treats conscience like a problem to solve.

Let me say that again, because this is the entire episode:

She doesn’t argue that murder is good—she argues that hesitation is weak.

Macbeth has brakes. Lady Macbeth calls the brakes “cowardice.”

And I’ll say it again—because repetition is the way understanding sticks:

This episode is about how people talk themselves into the unthinkable by making it sound practical.

We’ll follow Lady Macbeth through five key stops:

Act 1 Scene 5: she reads Macbeth’s letter and decides to push.

Act 1 Scene 7: she persuades Macbeth when he tries to back out.

Act 2 Scene 2: the murder happens, and we see who can function in the moment.

Transcript

Welcome to Conversations with Shakespeare - part of Celebrate Creativity.
Episode 3: An Interview with Lady Macbeth
How conscience gets treated like an inconvenience

HOST (George):
In Macbeth, evil rarely arrives waving a pitchfork; it arrives wearing a suit and offering a reasonable argument that elections are no longer necessary.
That’s how it works in public life—and it’s how it works in this play.

And Lady Macbeth is the clearest example.

Here’s the main idea of this episode.

Lady Melania - I mean lady macbeth -doesn’t begin as a monster. She begins as a person who treats conscience like a problem to solve.

Let me say that again, because this is the entire episode:

She doesn’t argue that murder is good—she argues that hesitation is weak.

Macbeth has brakes. Lady Macbeth calls the brakes “cowardice.”

And I’ll say it again—because repetition is the way understanding sticks:

This episode is about how people talk themselves into the unthinkable by making it sound practical.

We’ll follow Lady Macbeth through five key stops:

Act 1 Scene 5: she reads Macbeth’s letter and decides to push.

Act 1 Scene 7: she persuades Macbeth when he tries to back out.

Act 2 Scene 2: the murder happens, and we see who can function in the moment.

Here Lady Macbeth waits anxiously for Macbeth to return from killing Duncan. When Macbeth enters, he is horrified by what he has done. He has brought with him the daggers that he used on Duncan, instead of leaving them in the room with Duncan’s servants as Lady Macbeth had planned. When he finds himself incapable of returning the daggers, Lady Macbeth does so. She returns to find Macbeth still paralyzed with horror and urges him to put on his gown and wash the blood from his hands.

Act 3 Scene 2: the cost begins to show—she’s not as “strong” as she seemed.

Here Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth express their unhappiness. Macbeth speaks of his fear of Banquo especially. He refers to a dreadful deed that will happen that night but does not confide his plan for Banquo’s murder to Lady Macbeth.

Act 5 Scene 1: sleepwalking—conscience returns in the only place she can’t command: the mind.

And in this famous scene, the following takes place - A gentlewoman who waits on Lady Macbeth has seen her walking in her sleep and has asked a doctor’s advice. Together they observe Lady Macbeth make the gestures of repeatedly washing her hands as she relives the horrors that she and Macbeth have carried out and experienced. The doctor concludes that she needs spiritual rather than medical aid.

Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two.
Why then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my
lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear
who knows it, when none can call our power to
account? Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him?
LADY MACBETH  The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is
she now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No
more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that. You mar all
with this starting.

And the doctor says
Go to, go to. You have known what you should not.
And Lady macbeth replies -
 Here’s the smell of the blood still. All
the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. O, O, O!

That’s the map. Easy to follow. Hard to forget.

In other words, act one scene five deals with the letter, the decision, and the temperature of her mind.

HOST:
Lady Macbeth’s first big moment is not a crime. It’s a reaction.
Macbeth writes: “The witches spoke—Cawdor is true—king is promised.”
And Lady Macbeth’s mind moves fast.

Not “Is this right?”
Not “Should we wait?”
But “How do we get there?”

Let me say that again:

Macbeth sends news. Lady Macbeth turns it into a plan.
Again, shorter:
He brings the desire. She brings the timetable.

He drops a spark in the room; she starts rearranging the furniture into a bonfire.

To say it another way,

Lady Macbeth is practical.
She knows how power works.
She knows how appearances work.

And this is where she becomes the voice of “reasonable evil”:
She speaks like someone who believes that morality is a luxury.

To Lady Macbeth, conscience is not a compass. It’s an obstacle.

She doesn’t ask, “Is it wrong?” She asks, “Can we do it?”

In other words, “Conscience is her paperwork. She’d rather skip it.”

HOST:
Now People get hung up on her “unsex me here” speech.

But here - She’s not asking for supernatural powers. She’s asking to stop feeling.


She’s asking to be less human for a moment, because being human would slow her down.


She wants determination without tenderness—action without consequence.

And here’s an everyday translation:

She’s trying to silence the part of herself that would hesitate.

That’s not complicated. That’s recognizable.

ACT 1.7: HOW SHE WINS THE ARGUMENT - and this is the heart


Act 1 Scene 7—Macbeth is out. He says, “We will proceed no further.”

This is where Lady Macbeth shows her most frightening skill:
She doesn’t change the ethics. She changes the stakes.

Let me say that again:

She doesn’t prove it’s right—she makes backing out feel humiliating.

She wins by shame.

Again, with an image:

She doesn’t open a door; she removes the floor.

Think of this in simple steps:

You promised.

If you back out, you’re weak.
I would do worse than you—so don’t pretend you’re delicate.
Here is the plan—so stop talking and do it.

Let's look at it another way

She weaponizes identity.
She turns his pride into a lever.
She makes the fear of shame stronger than the fear of guilt.

In other words, Macbeth doesn’t choose murder because it becomes moral. He chooses murder because retreat becomes unbearable.

That’s how persuasion often works in real life, too.

Evil doesn’t usually sell itself as evil. It sells itself as “necessary.” As “practical.” As “the only adult option.”

The pitchfork almost never persuades. The ‘reasonable plan’ does.

ACT 2.2: AFTER THE MURDER—WHO CAN FUNCTION?
(10–14 minutes)

HOST:
After Duncan is killed, Macbeth comes back shaken. He’s rattled. He’s horrified.
Lady Macbeth, by contrast, is operational.

   Macbeth feels the weight immediately. Lady Macbeth postpones the weight.
He collapses in conscience; she goes into management mode.
He is haunted now; she is efficient now.
And this is important: her efficiency is not proof that she’s “stronger.”
It’s proof that she’s numbing herself.

Let me say that again:
Her calm is a strategy, not a victory.
She’s not immune to guilt—she’s delaying it.

She puts guilt in a closet and tells herself it won’t come out.

ACT 3.2: THE CRACKS SHOW

Act 3 Scene 2 is where listeners often get their first surprise.
Lady Macbeth isn’t triumphant. She isn’t glowing.
She says, essentially: we got what we wanted—and it isn’t making us happy.

Power doesn’t erase fear. It upgrades fear.
Repeat it:
You don’t stop being anxious after you seize power. You become anxious about keeping it.

In Other words,

The crown doesn’t calm the mind. It keeps the mind awake.
And Lady Macbeth begins to lose control of Macbeth. He stops confiding in her.
That is a huge character shift: she pushed him into action, but she can’t steer what action becomes.

She can start a fire. But she can’t control what it burns.

She can ignite ambition. But She can’t manage the consequences.

ACT 5.1: SLEEPWALKING — CONSCIENCE COMES BACK

HOST:
Now we come to Act 5 Scene 1. Sleepwalking.

This is Shakespeare being brutally simple:

If you refuse to feel guilt while you’re awake, it returns while you sleep.

Conscience is patient. It waits.
You can command your face—but you can’t command your dreams.

Lady Macbeth spent the early play trying to treat guilt like something you can clean up and easily move past.
But guilt isn’t a stain on your hands.
It’s a voice in your mind.

She thought guilt was a mess. Shakespeare shows guilt is a memory.
Lady macbeth thought guilt could be managed. Shakespeare shows guilt must be endured.

Lady Macbeth tries to outrun conscience. Conscience wins—slowly, quietly, and completely.

If you remember nothing else from this episode, remember this:

Lady Macbeth’s tragedy is not just what she does. It’s what she has to become in order to do it. She has to shrink her humanity to make room for her ambition.

In other words, She doesn’t lose her conscience because she never had one. She loses it because she tries to silence it—and it comes back louder.

Many scholars have said that Lady Macbeth is the play’s best example of self-persuasion.

She persuades herself that feeling is weakness.
She persuades Macbeth that hesitation is cowardice.
She persuades both of them that a plan makes a crime “reasonable.”

And here’s the warning Shakespeare gives you.
When you start calling cruelty “practical,” you’re already in danger.
The most dangerous evil is the evil that sounds sensible.
The suit is always more persuasive than the pitchfork.

HOST:
Next episode, we meet Banquo and Macduff as moral contrasts—men who live in the same poisoned climate but respond differently.

And I will keep repeating the simplest truth in this whole play:

Shakespeare is easy when you listen to the choices.
Not the poetry.
Not the language.
Not the fear.
The choices.

Because Macbeth isn’t confusing.
It’s a story of temptation, one step at a time—
and every step is spoken out loud.

“Wickedness rarely says, ‘I’m wicked.’ It says, ‘I’m practical.’ Reasonable language is the tuxedo cruelty wears to get past the bouncer.”

When you hear X, translate it to Y”

“We didn’t have a choice.” → We chose the option that protected us most.

“It’s complicated.” → If you saw it plainly, you’d object.

“We’re just being realistic.” → We’re shrinking our ethics to fit our convenience.

“Hard decisions have to be made.” → Someone else will pay for what we want.

“It’s not personal—it’s business.” → I want moral immunity for personal harm.

“Rules are rules.” → I’m outsourcing responsibility to policy.

“That’s above my pay grade.” → I prefer safety over conscience.

“We have to think long-term.” → Ignore the bodies on the short-term road.

“This is for the greater good.” → I get to decide what ‘greater’ means, and who counts.

“We’re protecting people.” → We’re controlling people.

“We need to restore order.” → We’re going to crack down—often on the usual targets.

“We must send a message.” → We’re making an example of someone.

“I’m just asking questions.” → I’m planting suspicion without evidence.

“Both sides do it.” → So I won’t examine what my side is doing right now.

“Let’s be civil.” → Stop naming the harm; it makes me uncomfortable.

“I’m being honest.” → I’m being blunt, and I want points for courage instead of accuracy.

“They started it.” → I’m declaring retaliation to be righteousness.

“It’s legal.” → I’m replacing ‘right’ with ‘allowed.’

“We’re optimizing / being efficient.” → We’re cutting humans out of the math.

“You have to break a few eggs.” → I am volunteering other people as eggs.

“Notice how often the vocabulary is managerial: necessary, efficient, inevitable. That’s the diction of a man washing his hands while they’re still wet.”

“Macbeth teaches a nasty little truth: evil doesn’t enter with horns. It enters with a clipboard. It speaks in reasonable sentences—necessary, unavoidable, for the greater good. And once you accept that language, the deed is already halfway done.
So when you hear ‘we had no choice,’ ask: who lost the choice? When you hear ‘it’s complicated,’ ask: complicated for whom? When you hear ‘we’re restoring order’ or ‘we’re protecting people,’ ask what kind of harm is being smuggled in under those noble words.
In politics—any politics—the costumes change. Some justify harshness as strength; some justify harshness as care. But Macbeth’s warning stands: when your language becomes perfectly reasonable, it may be the moment your conscience is being negotiated down to a price.”

In other words, the lesson of Macbeth is that the scariest words aren't threats-they're justifications.

Sources Include:  The Norton Complete Works of William Shakespeare, The Essential Shakespeare Handbook, Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare by Isaac Asimov, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom, The Globe Guide to Shakespeare, The Plays, The Productions, The Life, Shakesfear and How to Cure It, by Ralph Cohen, and ChatGPT four.

Thank you for listening to celebrate creativity and conversations with Shakespeare.