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Compare and Contrast the Macbeth’s Relationship and How Power Changes Hands throughout the Play
The first time we see Lady Macbeth in the play is in Act 1 Scene 5, where she is reading a letter sent by Macbeth, who is away at war. In the letter, we see Macbeth explain how he met the Weird Sisters, and they told him what was to come in his future, that he’d become Thane of Cawdor, and eventually, King of Scotland. He then explains that the first thing the Sisters had told him had actually become true, and he was made Thane of Cawdor, so, evidently, Lady Macbeth takes this as a sign. After she’s done reading the letter, she begins to talk about what has to be done to actually take the monarchy. However, she states:
“Yet I do fear thy nature,
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way”
Here, we can see Lady Macbeth worrying about Macbeth, and if he is actually cruel enough to be able to carry out the deed. It’s also interesting how she’s said about “catching the nearest way” which proves she’s obviously contemplated this before, and looked at different possibilities of how they could, in fact, become King and Queen, but this way, killing Duncan, would be the shortcut, the easy way to do it. You could put this down to the fact she’s just an obscenely cruel person, and this would be naturally the first option she thinks. However, further analysis could suggest that when Macbeth actually mentions that it was three witches who told him he’d become king, she realised that they’d obviously have to do something unspeakable to obtain their place on the thrones.
Afterward, a messenger enters, and informs her that the King is coming to visit. Once the messenger has exited, Lady Macbeth begins to speak again, saying how she wants to be made unkind, wants to have to be made completely cruel, have her gender taken away:
“Unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty”
She also says how she wants to be emotionless, how she has to be almost not even human. When Macbeth finally enters the scene, he immediately tells her that the king is staying at the castle, which causes Lady Macbeth to become very aggressive, saying “O never shall sun that morrow see!” Now, here, the lack of protest from Macbeth, and the lack of confusion from him also, proves that the two have definitely spoken to each other about this before, and have definitely contemplated killing him in the past. She also says to Macbeth:
“Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under’t”
Here, we can see Lady Macbeth telling Macbeth he has to act very kind to Duncan, act very hospitable, very respectful, whilst all the time keeping his mind on the goal he is setting out to achieve. The dominance in the relationship in this scene is very much in the hands of Lady Macbeth. This is shown through the way she orders Macbeth about, and goes along, stating plans without once asking him even if it’s ok with him. It’s as if Macbeth is like a child to her, he needs guidance, and orders, or he’ll do something wrong. There is also evidence in this scene that this has been the way of the relationship for much longer, due to the fact Macbeth is just going along with what Lady Macbeth is saying, never putting in his point of view at all. At the end of the scene, Macbeth requests they talk more of the matter. However, Lady Macbeth simply tells him to “look up clear”, which I believe is overall telling him just to stick to what she told him to do, so that he doesn’t falter. Afterward, she tells him to leave all the rest to her.
That is where the scene ends.
The next scene in which Lady Macbeth appears is in Act 1 Scene 7, this is where Macbeth is stood outside as the party continues inside. Lady Macbeth comes looking for him, which really opens up to what seems to be a pivotal part in the play. To begin with, Macbeth first asks Lady Macbeth for any updates, any news, to which she replies:
“He has almost supp’d,
Why did you leave the chamber?”
Afterward, Macbeth begins to actually think about how Duncan has made him Thane of Cawdor, has honoured him for being a war hero, and has given him infinite praise, so then he decides to let it all go, to “go no further in this business”, as he so puts it. He goes on to tell Lady Macbeth all this, as well as how he is renowned by all sorts of people. This obviously causes Lady Macbeth to fly into a rage, replying:
“Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress’d yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely?”
Here, we see Lady Macbeth really laying into Macbeth, asking him where the other man was who so readily agreed to carry out the deed, asking him if he has gone to sleep, if he has forgotten, and so on. She then goes on to perform a reverse psychology technique, which I believe relates back to my theory of her treating him like a child. To do this, she says:
“And live a coward in thine own self esteem”
Now, the reason Macbeth would take this very personally is because he is a war hero, a soldier, a very tough person. I believe he takes this more to heart because he probably thinks that he’s killed countless people, so why not this one man? One more person to add to the death toll surely wouldn’t matter. Another reason I believe he eventually breaks and changes his mind back is because he’s finally beginning to realise that he should be the leader of the relationship, so to speak. However, this does not happen until later in the play. She also goes on to give Macbeth what could only be described as a lecture about breaking promises, saying:
“I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums,
And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn to you,
Have done to this”
This is only proving more what a cruel person she is. Though we do not know if she would actually do what she said there, due to the fact she never had children, other things she has said in other scenes proves that she most probably would. It is also trying that little trick on Macbeth again, saying to him “Here is me, a woman, and I have the courage to do this, I would never break a promise, and you, a man, should most definitely not.”
Eventually, Macbeth agrees, by simply saying “If we should fail?” At this part, I think Lady Macbeth is trying to put on a tough persona, in an attempt to lead Macbeth by example. She simply replies “We fail?” However, she then goes on to say:
“But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we’ll not fail”
The “sticking place” Lady Macbeth describes is the of the back-most part of a crossbow, where the arrow rests, ready to be launched. The reason Lady Macbeth refers to a crossbow when talking about courage is because it is a very masculine reference, to do with war and combat, and, evidently, it takes a lot of courage to go to war and fight, again, going back to the tough words. After that, Lady Macbeth goes on to reassure Macbeth by telling him the rest of the plan, telling him that she’s going to get the wardens so drunk they’ll pass out, so Macbeth can go in and finish the job. Afterward, Macbeth suggests that he should kill Duncan with the guards’ daggers and plant them on them after so it looks like they’ve committed the murder. Lady Macbeth then suggests that they should be filled with grief at the news of Duncan’s death in the morning so it makes them look completely innocent, and afterward Macbeth says they should hide their true motives with false faces:
“Away, and mock the time with fairest show,
False face must hide what false heart doth know”
That is the end of the scene.
The thing that interests me about Lady Macbeth in this scene is the fact that when Macbeth says to her that he won’t carry on with the scheme, she gets extremely angry, starts saying very insulting things to him, trying to persuade him otherwise, and aggressively so, I might add. But instead of doing all that, why doesn’t she just go off and do the deed herself? She wants to be queen more than anything, that much is clear, so why rant at Macbeth when she could just kill Duncan and reap the benefits? This is half-answered later in the play, but unfortunately without much background detail.
Act 2 Scene 2 is the next scene Lady Macbeth is seen. This is the scene in which Macbeth has done the deed and the two meet (in the Polanski version, this is in the courtyard). To begin with, we see Lady Macbeth, on her own, again, talking about how indomitable her spirit is, and saying what she has done to the guards:
“That which hath made them drunk hath
Made me bold; ...
... That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die”
Afterward, Lady Macbeth hears a voice, whose voice, she does not know, and she begins to worry, saying that the guards may have awakened, and the deed is not done, even though she laid the daggers ready for Macbeth. She then goes on to say why she did not kill Duncan herself when she had the chance:
“Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done’t”
This really interested me because here’s Lady Macbeth, on her own, no one to act tough to, and she’s uncovered a weakness of hers. You could say she actually loves her father, and she’s not as heartless as she seems when she’s around Macbeth, yet again, proving not only that she is the dominant one in the relationship, but that she knows she is, and she wants to be.
The next part in this scene is very interesting, and very cleverly worked by Shakespeare. Once Macbeth enters, they begin having a very quick, one-lined conversation between them, about who it was that Lady Macbeth heard speak as Macbeth approached her. Eventually, Macbeth hears something coming from the second chamber, and Lady Macbeth tells him it’s Donalbain, to which Macbeth replies:
“This is a sorry sight”
This is when, I believe, Lady Macbeth starts to worry, but converts that to anger towards Macbeth, due to his stupidity for bringing the daggers down with him that were supposed to be used to make the guards look like they’d done it. This is the clever part of the scene, because while it looks like the Macbeths are having a conversation, or rather argument, between them, they’re actually talking to each other about completely different things, and not listening to a word that each other are saying. On the one hand, you have Lady Macbeth reprimanding her husband for his idiocy of bringing the daggers with him, and then you have Macbeth talking about what he thought he heard someone say as he took Duncan’s life:
Macbeth
“There’s one did laugh in’s sleep, and one cried
“Murder!”
But they did say their prayers and address’d them
Again to sleep”
Lady Macbeth
“There are two lodged together”
Here, you can see they’re talking about completely different things, and they continue their ‘conversation’ like this. In the end it’s Lady Macbeth who realises what Macbeth is talking about, and makes an attempt to sort him out, and calm him down, though in an aggressive way. She says:
“These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad”
She’s trying to stop her husband from talking about such things, from fearing them, and yet, due to the brevity and sharpness of the lines, you can tell her mind is on other things, specifically, the daggers. However, Macbeth carries on talking about these things, completely oblivious as to what his wife is saying to him, saying:
“Still it cried “Sleep no more!” to all the house;
“Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more”
She then realises he isn’t going to stop this incessant rambling, so she tries to console him yet again, though still in an aggressive way, and still orders him to do things, even with the state he’s in:
“You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things, go, get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring the dagger from the place?
They must lie there. Go, carry them, and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood”
Again, she’s ordering him to do things, yet this time, when she tells him to take the daggers, he actually refuses too. Now, due to the way he actually refuses, logically, it would be interpreted as fear, due to the fact he says “I am afraid to think what I have done”, but you can tell Lady Macbeth is completely shocked that he has actually said no, due to the way she reacts after Macbeth has said this, saying:
“Infirm of purpose!”
Yet again, she’s calling him weak; trying to really get to him, knowing it will aggravate him somewhat. She then carries on, saying that she will take the daggers, due to the fact it has to be done, so that it will make the guards look guilty, in place of them. After she comes back, there is something about her last lines that made me think her attitude had changed a little. For one, she says:
“I shame to wear a heart so white”
This is her saying she is actually ashamed of being a coward, which could be due to the fact she didn’t have the will to kill Duncan herself, or due to the fact seeing Duncan as she placed the daggers on the guards actually may have caused her a little bit of fright. It is not actually clear as to why she calls herself a coward, but I find it ironic how she spends all her time giving Macbeth abuse, telling him he’s useless, and so on, however, when it comes to her actually seeing Duncan dead, she probably realises she wouldn’t have the spine to do it herself, and begins to feel ashamed about that. You could say what she said about not killing him because he reminded her of her father was a simple excuse in place of the truth being she simply wouldn’t be able to do it. She then, it seems, tries to clear the thought from her head by saying:
“A little water clears us of this deed”
While this is true in a technical sense, considering the technology we have today wasn’t around back then, so if someone had blood on them, they’d done it, she’s also, I believe, trying to use it as a way of forgetting it ever happened, completely washing it, so to speak, from their minds. This proves her weakness, because she also doesn’t want to think on it, doesn’t want to admit she’s done it. Nearly as if she regrets it.
The scene ends with them both going back to their bedchambers and awaiting the next day. Standing by as watchers, as Lady Macbeth puts it.
The next scene Lady Macbeth plays a significant role in is Act 3 Scene 4. This is after Macbeth has become king, and has ordered the hit on Banquo. Right now, in the play, the dominance in the relationship has completely switched sides, and now it is Macbeth who is the leader of the two. Lady Macbeth now has to ask just to see her husband, and has all but no say in the relationship at all.
In this scene, Macbeth hosts a banquet for a group of lords, and Ross is also there. After the murderers have come and confirmed Banquo’s death to him, Macbeth moves on to the banquet. It is then that he makes a toast, and Ross asks him to come and “bless them with his royal company”, telling him to come and sit with them. However, Macbeth sees someone sat in the place that is meant to be reserved for him, and then sees that it is Banquo, or what he believes is Banquo. Lady Macbeth’s role in this scene is to control the situation as Macbeth is rambling on about what he thinks he’s seeing. Lady Macbeth doesn’t actually know that Banquo has been killed, and so when Macbeth sees the Ghost of Banquo, and starts saying things like “Thou canst not say I did it; never shake thy gory locks at me”, she immediately gets the impression he’s talking about Duncan, and begins to seriously worry that he’s going to say something that will uncover the truth. She quickly steps in, saying:
“Sit, worthy friends; my lord is often thus,
And hath been from his youth”
Obviously, saying he has a problem with his mental health would be the best excuse for Macbeth’s behaviour, but it’s not that that makes this interesting. Later in the same piece of dialogue, Lady Macbeth turns back to Macbeth and says to him discreetly “Are you a man?” Now here, I believe this is an attempt, albeit a feeble one, from Lady Macbeth to yet again belittle Macbeth, and try and take back the dominance and leadership in the relationship she so badly needs. Macbeth, completely preoccupied with what he thinks he’s seeing, completely brushes this aside by simply saying:
“Aye, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appal the devil”
Lady Macbeth then begins to have a go at him again, saying all the things she’d said back when she was the leader of the two, telling him he’s talking nonsense: “O proper stuff!”, saying at the end of the day, what he thinks he’s seen doesn’t exist, like the dagger. You can tell now that she’s so incredibly desperate to wrestle back that position that she’s really laying into him with the lectures and the insults, and so aggressively, also. I think she also decided to do this now, as the situation becomes more desperate, so that Macbeth will more easily agree due to the fact they’re in front of a hall full of people, and so a quick solution or excuse would be the best one.
Throughout the scene Macbeth carries on seeing Banquo’s Ghost, and so, finally, Lady Macbeth tells everyone to stand and leave. Once they have left, however, Lady Macbeth completely changes, and begins to show her husband a lot more respect, becoming much less argumentative and aggressive. I believe this proves that she has finally realised her husband is never going to fall back to his inferior role as the child of the relationship, as the lesser human. The scene calms down much more at this point, the two stop being so hostile toward each other and just start having what seems to be a polite discussion. But going back to Lady Macbeth’s stance toward Macbeth, she’s so much more courteous and polite, even calling him sir. Now of course, him being the king, you would expect her to call him this, but when he was just a thane, she never showed him the same etiquette, and she only ever makes replies to what Macbeth is saying, instead of putting in her own views, which proves as I said, the roles have switched completely.
The end of the scene goes with Macbeth saying they should go to sleep, and also saying that they’re “but young in deed”, which I believe is either him saying that they’re in the early stages of being king and queen, or is him saying that they’re in the early stages of dealing with what they’ve done, that is, killing Duncan.
The final scene in which Lady Macbeth appears is Act 5 Scene 1, where she ultimately loses her mind. In this scene, a gentlewoman and doctor is watching Lady Macbeth as she sleepwalks. Interestingly, the gentlewoman says that she’d seen Lady Macbeth do this every night since her husband went into the “field”, here meaning the battlefield, take out a piece of paper, write on it, read it, and put it back. However, when the doctor asks what she’d said in her sleep, the gentlewoman starts to get very defensive of her, saying:
“That sir, which I will not report about her”
Now, either this is because she’s queen, and obviously, she has a right to keep what she does in her subconscious private, or it’s because she’s said something that has completely uncovered the secret, and, the gentlewoman being the only person who knows, fears to tell this secret due to her being found out and put to death for treason, perhaps, by extension. When Lady Macbeth finally gets up and starts sleepwalking, the first thing she says is:
“Yet here’s a spot”
Going back to Act 2 Scene 2, when she says “A little water clears us of this deed”, like I said, she’s trying to wash the blood not just off her hands, but out of her mind as well. However, she says there’s one spot, and perhaps this is signifying the fact that the guilt for the murder is always in the back of her mind, and she can never get it out, that it’s stuck in there.
She carries on like this, saying:
“Out damned spot! Out I say! One-Two-....
....Yet who would have thought the old man to have
So much blood in him?”
Obviously she’s talking about Duncan, but it’s strange, because she didn’t actually kill him, she just grabbed Macbeth and got the blood on her hands, in a literal sense. However, this could symbolise her guilt for playing such a huge role in the planning of the murder. She could also feel as if the whole thing was completely her fault, because if she hadn’t had a go at Macbeth when he told her he wouldn’t go on with the deed, the whole thing would never have happened. So perhaps the blood she talks about here represents guilt.
She still goes on to say all the people Macbeth has had murdered since he took the thrown, people she had nothing to do with the murder of, yet however, perhaps it’s because it’s her fault they became the monarchs in the first place or, it’s because if she’d have been able to keep herself leader of the two, they’d never have had to die. She also says:
“Wash your hands; put on your nightgown,
Look not do pale, I tell you again, Banquo’s buried; he
Cannot come out on’s grave”
This is her, yet again, trying to get rid of the guilt, trying to calm herself and, apparently, her husband down, though it is not clear if she’s talking to herself or her husband in this section.
The scene ends with Lady Macbeth saying to go to bed, saying “What’s done cannot be undone”, so she could be using sleep as a way to forget it all, to get it off her mind.
There is a huge irony in this scene, I think, due to the fact she’s said to Macbeth how the deeds should “not be though on, it will make us mad”, and so on, tried to calm Macbeth saying all his hallucinations aren’t real, and yet, she’s the one who loses her mind in the play, which yet again proves she’s only acting tough, when she isn’t at all, and this shows her mind to be very weak, very susceptible to guilt. It’s like she’s counting on Macbeth to go mad, and yet she hasn’t paid any attention to herself.
In the play, the leadership and dominance of the relationship goes completely to Lady Macbeth, until they actually become king and queen, which was when it completely switched, and Macbeth was the higher person in the relationship, and this is how it panned out for the rest of the play, despite the obvious attempts from Lady Macbeth to pull it back for her.
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