Lady Macbeth, the character Roscilla wears like a costume, has access to some of the most entrenched and potent imagery in literature, and the book does not shy away from wielding it:

It is too much; he cannot expect her to do this. She has only just cleaned her hands. She has given three different men their deaths. Is this what it means, truly, to be Lady Macbeth? Sorceress, murderer, the dagger in her husband’s hand?

Nearly every time she was referred to as a metaphorical “dagger”—by herself, or others—I gasped with joy. “They said the line!” It’s shiverful.

She should not wear a white garment ever again. At least a dark linen will better hide the blood she sees dripping from her hands, soaking the hem of the dress, and pooling on the floor around her feet.

Blood, too, gets its due, though the restraint at having no “damned spot” that I could see proves Lady Macbeth is a work of fine art rather than a pulp of known content pressed into a new shape.

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