‘ …look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t.’
Lady Macbeth’s advice to her husband indicates her familiarity with deception. Her use of the imperative ‘look’ underlines her ascendancy over her husband at this point in the play and reminds us that deception is not necessarily easy for Macbeth because his life before the witches’ prophecy had been one of transparency and apparent nobility. Lady Macbeth ironically uses a simile drawn from nature to suggest how he might perform falsity in public( ‘look like th’ innocent flower’) and she develops this image through the biblical reference to the ‘serpent’ clearly aligning Macbeth’s treachery with that of Adam and Eve. It is also of signifance that Lady Macbeth advice combines both simile and metaphor, as she deepens the command.And of course in the Bible’s Genesis Story it is the wife’s weakness and susceptibility to greedy temptation that destroys God’s gift of Paradise for Adam and Eve. Likewise the dangerous ambition of Macbeth ( and his wife) will lead to civil war and ultimately foreshadows their own destruction and tragic fall.Interestingly, it could be argued that Lady Macbeth’s facility for deception is a necessary skill for women in a patriarchal and even misogynistic society at that time and that ironically her intimate, even loving knowledge of her husband makes his inner turmoil apparent to her: ‘ Your face, my Thane , is a book where men may read strange matters.’ The irony extends beyond the effects of her cajoling here and leads to her becoming all too ‘readable’ as a ‘book’ in Act Five where she leaks guilt to the point of confession.
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