How Does Shakespeare Present Macbeth's Relationship With Lady Macbeth
The relationship between Machbeth and Lady Macbeth
By Myrna Cibelly
Macbeth, the play written by William Shakespeare in 1606, shows us the relationship that exists between the characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and how it creates most of the actions, reactions, moods, feelings and attitudes. Both love each other and that deserves any sacrifice. At the beginning of the play, they are very close and this is shown when he calls her, "my dearest partner of greatness." He clearly demonstrates being open with his wife. Afterwards, they seem more and more distant, each into his/her private world.
Although Lady Macbeth shares many personality traits with her husband, such as the pride, she is endowed with …show more content…
Before, she was a calm, controlled, and strong wife, now, her mental state begins to damage. She wakes up in the middle of the night, sleep walking and speaking aloud,
Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him. (Macbeth, Act V, Scene I, p. 114)
Lady Macbeth and her husband separate of each one not only physically - she gets mad and he doesn’t care about her anymore, because he is obsessed with his enemies. Arising from this, unable to bear the madness, she commits suicide.
Macbeth reacts with indifference to Lady Macbeth’s death saying,
She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow. Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Macbeth, Act V, Scene V, p. …show more content…
Thus, we can see how their relationship has changed throughout the play and how he has changed, in contrast to his guilt when he killed the king Duncan. Now, Macbeth is too eager to enable his conscience to stop him from doing cruel things. However, near the end of the story, he seems to be relieved to know that the English army was coming and it means that he would return to the battlefield, where he starts to win, nevertheless, he loses the battle dying.
We can conclude that the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth has always been about complicity and fidelity despite this mutual union deteriorates in the final moments of the story. Macbeth needed Lady Macbeth’s mental strength while for Lady Macbeth her husband’s physical force was indispensable to commit the barbaric act. This represents a balance between the characters; one completes the other and vice versa. They are partners in crime, in greed, in corruption, in madness and in their allucinations, which symbolizes an irony of a “wonderful” union.
By Myrna Cibelly
Macbeth, the play written by William Shakespeare in 1606, shows us the relationship that exists between the characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and how it creates most of the actions, reactions, moods, feelings and attitudes. Both love each other and that deserves any sacrifice. At the beginning of the play, they are very close and this is shown when he calls her, "my dearest partner of greatness." He clearly demonstrates being open with his wife. Afterwards, they seem more and more distant, each into his/her private world.
Although Lady Macbeth shares many personality traits with her husband, such as the pride, she is endowed with …show more content…
Before, she was a calm, controlled, and strong wife, now, her mental state begins to damage. She wakes up in the middle of the night, sleep walking and speaking aloud,
Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him. (Macbeth, Act V, Scene I, p. 114)
Lady Macbeth and her husband separate of each one not only physically - she gets mad and he doesn’t care about her anymore, because he is obsessed with his enemies. Arising from this, unable to bear the madness, she commits suicide.
Macbeth reacts with indifference to Lady Macbeth’s death saying,
She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow. Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Macbeth, Act V, Scene V, p. …show more content…
Thus, we can see how their relationship has changed throughout the play and how he has changed, in contrast to his guilt when he killed the king Duncan. Now, Macbeth is too eager to enable his conscience to stop him from doing cruel things. However, near the end of the story, he seems to be relieved to know that the English army was coming and it means that he would return to the battlefield, where he starts to win, nevertheless, he loses the battle dying.
We can conclude that the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth has always been about complicity and fidelity despite this mutual union deteriorates in the final moments of the story. Macbeth needed Lady Macbeth’s mental strength while for Lady Macbeth her husband’s physical force was indispensable to commit the barbaric act. This represents a balance between the characters; one completes the other and vice versa. They are partners in crime, in greed, in corruption, in madness and in their allucinations, which symbolizes an irony of a “wonderful” union.