Act & Scene	Quote	Meaning
1.5	“Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.”	She calls on supernatural forces to strip away her feminine “weakness” and remorse so she can plan the murder.
1.5	“Look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under ’t.”	She instructs Macbeth to mask his murderous intentions with a facade of loyalty and hospitality.
1.7	“I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, / And dash’d the brains out.”	She uses graphic, violent imagery to shame Macbeth, suggesting he is a coward for hesitating to kill Duncan.
2.2	“A little water clears us of this deed.”	Her initial cold and dismissive attitude toward the murder, believing that guilt is easily washed away.
3.2	“Nought’s had, all’s spent, / Where our desire is got without content.”	She admits privately that gaining the crown has brought no peace or happiness, only anxiety.
5.1	“Out, damned spot! out, I say!”	During her mental breakdown, she hallucinated blood on her hands that she cannot wash off, symbolizing her permanent guilt.
5.1	“All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”	A sensory metaphor showing that the “smell” of her sin is overwhelming and can never be covered up.

In Act 1, Scene 5, Lady Macbeth’s famous invocation, “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,” serves as her own version of a witch’s spell.

Through the use of imperative verbs and the metaphor of “unsexing,” she pleads with dark forces to strip away her feminine compassion and replace it with “direst cruelty.”

This connects to the theme of The Supernatural and Gender, as she believes that to be powerful enough to commit murder, she must move beyond the traditional “fair” constraints of being a woman and embrace a “foul,” masculine violence.

Later in the same scene, she uses a powerful simile and metaphor when she tells her husband to “look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under ’t.”

By comparing a peaceful face to a flower and a treacherous heart to a snake, she perfectly captures the theme of Appearance vs. Reality. The “serpent” is also a religious allusion to the devil in the Garden of Eden, suggesting that she is the one tempting Macbeth into a “fall” from grace. This establishes her as the true driving force behind the initial plot to kill King Duncan.

As Macbeth hesitates in Act 1, Scene 7, Lady Macbeth uses shocking, graphic imagery, claiming she would have “dash’d the brains out” of her own nursing child rather than break a promise.

This extreme hyperbole is designed to attack Macbeth’s masculinity and courage. It connects to the theme of Ambition and Manipulation, showing that she is willing to destroy the most “natural” bond (motherhood) to achieve “unnatural” power. This ruthlessness effectively “shames” Macbeth into following through with the murder.

Following the assassination in Act 2, Scene 2, her cold practicality is shown in the line, “A little water clears us of this deed.” This understatement serves as a direct contrast to Macbeth’s panicked belief that an entire ocean couldn’t clean him.

It links to the theme of Guilt, or rather her lack of it at the start. She views the murder as a simple physical task to be finished, failing to realize that the spiritual and psychological “stain” of the crime cannot be washed away with water.

By Act 3, Scene 2, a shift begins to occur as she admits, “Nought’s had, all’s spent, where our desire is got without content.” Through the use of antithesis (nothing/all) and a rhyming couplet, she expresses a deep sense of irony.

This connects to the theme of The Futility of Ambition, revealing that even though they have the crown, they have no “content” (peace). This is the first time we see the cracks in her mask, suggesting that her earlier strength was a lie.

Finally, in Act 5, Scene 1, her mind completely shatters, leading to the frantic cry, “Out, damned spot! out, I say!” The “spot” of blood is a symbol of her permanent guilt, and her repetitive, fragmented prose shows that she has lost the ability to speak in the controlled, poetic way she did in Act 1.

This connects to the theme of Divine Retribution and Madness, proving that while she tried to “unsex” herself and ignore her conscience, the “foul” nature of her crimes eventually destroyed her from the inside out.