"Fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty!"
This quote comes into play towards the end of Lady Macbeth's soliloquy. She has been informed that her husband has the opportunity to obtain the throne and reign as king; but, of course, there is a catch. Knowing that her husband is "too full o' th' milk of human kindness" (page 18), to kill King Duncan, she decides to take matters into her own hands. In this era woman are seen as people that should be seen and not heard, almost like property, as if they were owned by their husbands and society. By staying one step ahead of her husband and Duncan she is planning to execute a plan that will allow her to live vicariously through her husband in a powerful position of royalty. Although her originally thoughts may make the reader begin to think that she is evil through and through, she goes on to explain that she wants to break the stereotype of women being caring, loving, and motherly and, figuratively, exchange her breast milk (which is used to care for young) for gall, which is used her as a synonym for poison. This interests me because she is choosing to become evil in order to reach her ultimate goal, but if she truly had it within her to arbitrarily kill a person, especially a king, it seems that she should have been evil all along. This quote, which speaks of figuratively filling someone with evil and cruelty, reminds me of a saying that refers to people who are extraordinarily nice; people refer to them as "not having a mean bone in their body". This quote, however, seems to be the opposite of that, as Lady Macbeth is purposefully developing an evil conscience within herself.
