The Great Chain of Being was a philosophical concept intended to organize everything in the universe into a hierarchy – a ranking system. It developed from certain of the ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, and was central to the way Christians in medieval and early modern Europe understood their world.
The rankings flow from high to low, more complex to less complex, more noble to less noble, more holy to less holy. God, naturally, is at the top. Next come angels, then humans, then animals, then plants, then rocks.
For our purposes, here are the important things to know about the GCoB:
1. Each rank can be further subdivided. So within the "humans" category, you have a hierarchy from King to nobles to knights to merchants to peasants, etc.
2. Every human family is also subdivided: Dad first, then Mom, then sons from oldest to youngest, then daughters from oldest to youngest.
3. It's a sin to disobey/disrespect/harm someone higher than you on the chain. Humans can't disobey God, peasants can't kill the King, and wives can't give their husbands attitude. (Guess how well that last one went over.)
4. This is a chain, not a ladder. You have to stay in your place. Theoretically, there should be no social mobility whatsoever.
Lady Macbeth gets in trouble because she subverts the GCoB in three ways. Two are pretty obvious, and the third is a little more subtle.
She's willing to disobey God
After hearing about the witches' prophecy, Lady Macbeth calls on demons – "murd'ring ministers" – to help her and her husband bring it to pass. She asks them to send the "dunnest smoke of hell" to hide her actions from heaven (I.v.55-61).
After Macbeth has killed Duncan, he suffers an attack of conscience. He's particularly horrified because he could not give the traditional Christian answer, "Amen," when he overheard soldiers praying in a room near Duncan's. "Wherefore could I not pronounce 'Amen'?" he asks his wife. "I had the most need of blessing." She replies, "Consider it not so deeply. ... These deeds must not be thought/After these ways; so, it will make us mad" (II.ii.37-46).
In other words, she's willing to ignore God's rules. And God is #1 in the GCoB power rankings: opposing Him is the biggest sin of all.
She pushes Macbeth to kill King Duncan
Macbeth is a noble, and Duncan is a king. In the GCoB, kings are higher than nobles, and so, as far as Macbeth is concerned, Duncan is sacrosanct. Killing him is a big no-no.
It's important to note that, while Macbeth carries out the assassination, Lady Macbeth shares the blame because she provides the impetus. Macbeth is ambitious, but she worries he's also "too full o' th' milk of human kindness" (I.iv.17) so she plans the whole thing. She tells him he must "put/This night’s great business into my dispatch," and later says, "Only look up to clear. ... Leave all the rest to me" (I.v.79-80, 84-86).
Macbeth still nearly botches things. Right before he's supposed to go stab Duncan, he decides, "We will proceed no further in this business" (I.vii.34). Lady Macbeth unleashes a vicious assault on his manhood.
Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would”
...
When you durst do it, then you were a man. (I.vii.45-8, 56)
Macbeth wilts, and finishes the deed.
She's a wife acting like a husband
Lady Macbeth is clearly a clever, assertive, ambitious woman. But more to the point, some of her language makes it sound like she's coming to inhabit the male role in her marriage, and relegating Macbeth to the female role.
When she's invoking demons, the first thing she asks them to do is "unsex" her and imbue her whole body with "direst cruelty" (I.v.48-50). She wants them to take away her female-ness, and she plans to fill the void with masculine traits. She renounces her nature as a mother, too, inviting the demons, "Come to my woman’s breasts/And take my milk for gall" (I.v.54-55). Later, she proudly flaunts her un-womanliness to shame Macbeth:
I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this. (I.vii.62-67)
So where does that leave Macbeth? This is her opinion of his behavior when he sees Banquo's ghost:
O, these flaws and starts,
Impostors to true fear, would well become
A woman’s story at a winter’s fire,
Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself! (III.iv.76-79)
The loser isn't worth more than a woman's bedtime story.
The Great Chain strikes back
In Shakespeare's plays, order always triumphs over disorder, although in the tragedies, this comes with a high body count. So too in Macbeth. In her ambition and her pride, Lady Macbeth violates the Great Chain of Being, and eventually her transgressions catch up with her. It drives her mad. In Act V, Scene I, a doctor and gentlewoman observe her sleepwalking, muttering, and trying madly to scrub her hands clean of the vestiges of Duncan's blood.
She is speaking in prose, rather than verse, which is a more unstructured form of speech. It's a sign she's breaking down. And what is it she's saying?
"Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard?" (V.i.38-39). She's still mocking Macbeth, even in her sleep, but it's significant that she's referring to him as a lord and a soldier – what he used to be – rather than a king. Things were good when he was a respected Thane and accomplished soldier. Those are the roles he was meant for.
"What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?" (V.i.39-41). This question haunts her, because of course, no matter how high you try to get on the GCoB, God is always paramount. He's going to hold her responsible.
"The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?" (V.i.44-45). Macbeth ordered the murder of the Thane of Fife's wife and children. But why is Lady Macbeth only asking after wife? The idea of an empty position where a wife and mother should be is very relevant to her, because those are two roles she abrogated.
"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" (V.i.53-55). She imagines malodorous blood staining her hands. She considers using scent to cover up the stench, but has to dismiss the possibility. It wouldn't work for her. Perfume is for women, and she abandoned her womanhood.
In the final tally, Lady Macbeth is a woman who mounted a furious campaign to improve her and her husband's position in the world. But the Great Chain of Being is immutable, and her attempt to subvert it destroys her. Tortured and insane, she dies offstage, unseen: the ultimate diminution.
Note: the citations are all from the Folger Online edition of Macbeth, which can be accessed here.
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