Shakespeare “Macbeth” and Robert Browning “The Laboratory, are related via the theme of power and in both stories in involves a murder plot. In both works it shows ambitious women is willing to resort to murder to accomplish their ends. Both are not afraid to kill, both use a lot of descriptive language and they are both planners. Both women in Macbeth and The Laboratory are shown to seek power thru an intended killing to gain themselves some power they covet which is currently possessed by their intended victim. Macbeth seeks the crown of Scotland by murdering the king, and the narration of The Laboratory seeks a redress of grievance via the murder of her rival .The similarity in both characters is that both are open to kill and they showed no remorse or moral problems in it. Like for example in The Laboratory the narrator describes how is she going to kill her lover’s mistress. “Now that,trying thy glass mask tightly My gaze tho these faint smoke curling whitely As though pliest thy trade in this devil’s smithy Which is the poison to poison her,prither?
As this compared to Lady Macbeth of killing Duncan, which can be seen in Act 1, Scene 5 p.20.
“Come to my womans breast, and take my milk for gall, you murdering minister
Whereas in your sightless substance
You wait on nature’s mischief
Come,thick,night
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell....
With these scene in Macbeth and the lines in The Laboratory poem it shows that the character doesn’t show any remorse till the end until she loses her mind and stricken with guilt.
These women shows that they quite brutal, aggressive and violent characters as what Lady Macbeth describes, she would dash her child’s brain on the ground rather than break a promise to her husband whereas the speaker in The Laboratory describes how she would like the rivals to suffer and die.
They both use their femininity to