56 pages • 1 hour read
Ava ReidLady Macbeth
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
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Important Quotes
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BetaPart 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “Act III: King Hereafter”
Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary
The next day, Roscille goes to the chamber where the men have all gathered around the bodies. Evander swears revenge, but Lisander believes the guards were responsible. Macbeth hugs her. He creates a bond with the princes by suggesting that perhaps the killers were the same people who attacked his wife: He too wants vengeance. Roscille is aware of the various connections she has created with Fléance, Macbeth, and Lisander. She feels she is now Lady Macbeth more than Roscille.
Evander rages at the household staff, an emotional display that will discredit him among the lords. The chancellor performs cruentation, revealing the guards were indeed the killers. Lisander says they wouldn’t have done this without reason, so there must be a bigger treachery brewing. The chancellor and the brothers agree that something must be done fast in case enemies at home or abroad capitalize on the power vacuum. Evander thinks Lisander should be crowned, but Lisander argues he isn’t fit. Evander tells him to return to their castle with the chancellor while he and Macbeth investigate, seeking revenge. He accidentally mentions their clan’s reputation, already tainted by rumors of a mysterious affliction. Lisander is reluctant to part ways but agrees.
Once the brothers have left, Macbeth silently instructs Roscille to kill Lisander. The necklace constricts her breath. She gets a kitchen knife and goes to Lisander’s room. She removes her veil to bewitch him with her eyes, and they kiss passionately. He removes the necklace, saying it is a symbol of Macbeth’s conquests, but she points out that it is also her protection. He performs oral sex on her but then finds the knife.
Part 3, Chapter 8 Summary
Lisander holds Roscille down by the throat and takes away the knife. He calls her a witch and says that he knows she somehow orchestrated Duncane’s murder. She realizes that he was not actually bewitched by her and asks if his apparent passion was just a means to an end. He asks her the same question. He returns the necklace to cover her love bites. She thinks he will kill her, but he says he must keep her alive to negotiate with her husband. Moreover, he cannot reveal their liaison without also condemning himself. He promises to keep his vow to protect her. He ties her hands behind her back. She sees gouges in the stone walls and realizes he is supernatural in some way, which is why her attempt to bewitch him did not work.
Lisander takes her to the courtyard at sword point. Macbeth, Banquho, and Fléance return. Furious, Macbeth commands Lisander to release Roscille. He reveals that he, Banquho, and Fléance attacked Evander, who fled. He predicts Evander will seek help from Macduff and from the English king. Lisander warns Macbeth that the English will invade in Evander’s name and that the Thanes will not want to fight them. He points out that if he is still living, Macbeth can use him as a bargaining chip. Macbeth has him thrown in the dungeons, alive. Duncane’s Druide submits to Macbeth, who kills him anyway.
Alone, he instructs Roscille to wash him. He is not angry about her failure to kill Lisander, believing him more use alive as both a hostage and a source of information through torture. He tells her he will leave tomorrow to conquer Duncane’s seat of power. While he is gone, he expects her to run the castle and oversee Lisander’s torture. He will leave Banquho and Fléance behind as punishment for allowing Evander to escape and to protect her against attack. He gives her the key to the witches’ basement. The men ride out for battle. Banquho and Fléance are furious to be left with Roscille.
Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary
Roscille remembers her father’s wife, Adelaide, who was not blessed by beauty and who was mentally unwell. Because of this, the pope unofficially released Wrybeard from his marital bond so that he could openly bed whomever he liked, including Roscille’s mother, who died in childbirth. Because of Adelaide, Roscille thinks it is crucial to be both beautiful and sharp: She is terrified of “madness.”
Roscille visits Lisander in the dungeon. She tells him she is only trying to survive and did not want to be queen. He assures her he will not talk under torture, as he doesn’t feel pain like other men.
Roscille hears the villagers’ grievances and treats them kindly. Banquho disapproves: He warns her that treachery is abroad and that fear is more effective than love. One of the villagers’ complaints involved an ostracized woman, Senga, accused of having many sexual partners. Roscille has Fléance bring Senga into the castle. She decides that instead of sending her to a nunnery, Senga will be her handmaiden. Roscille offers her literacy lessons in return for reshaping her dresses into the local style. Roscille indulges dreams of exercising power in the court, reshaping it with more women and culture.
Banquho is furious that Roscille has had Fléance carry out a task he disapproved of. He takes her and Fléance to the dungeon to torture Lisander. She refuses, revealing her and Fléance’s pretense about being attacked to Banquho in an attempt to bribe him. Banquho offers to keep it secret so long as she does, to protect both Fléance and her, but she refuses and continues to protect Lisander. However, she is unable to remove her veil, which Banquho catches and keeps over her face. They tie her up, and Banquho instructs Fléance to whip her legs brutally while Lisander protests from his cell. Banquho and Fléance then leave her, planning to send a doctor in the morning and to accuse her of failing Macbeth when he returns. Lisander speaks in her native language, telling her he has been awake for two days now and must share his secret before it is too late.
Part 3 Analysis
Reid continues to draw on the traditional five-act structure: Part 3 is the climax of the narrative, as it deals with the seismic change instigated by Roscille’s murder of Duncane, which repositions all the characters. Roscille feels she is Lady Macbeth more than Roscille: She believes her actions have cemented her status as an extension of Macbeth and, as such, a ruthless power player in her new society. Macbeth’s power now seems indisputable, as he is king. Reid also shows a new side to Lisander and Evander as they display earnest grief, offering a reminder of humanity in a world of violence. The fall of Duncane and the rise of Macbeth also has practical implications for the two brothers, as Lisander is imprisoned and Evander forced to flee. This climactic section thus emphasizes the cut-throat nature of Roscille’s environment.
Reid shows that in theory, Roscille has achieved means to exercise Agency in a Violent World: She is now queen, and Macbeth leaves her in charge of the castle. However, she has gained this power by killing at her husband’s will, and her power remains conditional on both compliance and violence—e.g., the order first to kill and then to torture Lisander. Roscille has achieved the greatest level of formal power available to her in this world’s structure, but Reid shows this is not true agency, suggesting that Roscille will need to seek agency beyond the official structures of her society.
In this section, Roscille does begin to assert her agency in ways outside traditional gendered roles: She has sex outside of marriage with Lisander and attempts to empower the disenfranchised ordinary villagers through supporting their education or reducing the extent of the lordship’s financial power over them. Roscille has limited success, ending this section tortured and in imminent danger, but Reid shows that Roscille is exercising freedom of mind and asserting herself.
Through this, Roscille also begins to rediscover herself, developing the theme of The Origins of Individual Identity and Humanity. She learns what kind of things she would do with power: supporting those in need, helping Senga, and refusing to hurt Lisander. Despite her awareness of the violence caused by her acts of self-preservation, she is connected to a broader sense of humanity beyond mere self-interest.
Reid uses The Truth of Myth and Magic to reinforce this point, showing that Roscille’s magic, which she has seen as frightening and dangerous, is not inhuman or separate from her humanity but a part of it. New revelations about Lisander’s character aid Roscille’s growth, as she sees that his kindness and moral compass coexist alongside his unknown supernatural force and even alongside his power of manipulation (as when he persuades Macbeth to keep him alive). This act of self-preservation implicitly gives Roscille permission to forgive herself for her own morally gray actions. Most importantly, the fact that he is able to look at Roscille’s eyes reminds her of her humanity. Senga, too, is able to look at her eyes: They are only frightening to (violent) men, which suggests that her alienation—her sense of monstrousness—is a form of internalized misogyny.
Reid also explores Roscille’s humanity and agency through her positive sexual relations with Lisander. Previously, Roscille has associated sex with violence and loss of control; she notes that she was even afraid to masturbate lest her physical urges overrule her sharp mind. When Lisander performs oral sex on her, she finds freedom in letting go of her fear of losing control and in indulging her real desires. She connects to her sexuality and recognizes that sex can be positive, able to see herself as neither perpetrator nor victim but as someone who can engage in a reciprocal relationship including gentleness and pleasure. Rather than simply inverting the traditional power structure (that is, by depicting a man pleasuring a woman), Reid challenges the very association of sex with hierarchy, framing this as an artifact of patriarchy.
However, Roscille ends the section physically injured and trapped in the dungeons awaiting her fate. This shows the danger of seeking to forge an alternative path in a violent world. Though this section hints at the possibility of a happy ending, Reid places her protagonist in continuous danger as she builds the narrative’s climax, finishing with a cliffhanger.
