Role Reversal within Macbeth

Role Reversal within Macbeth

Shakespeare’s Macbeth documents a man’s desire for power, and the murderous acts that he commits in order to gain it. Nevertheless, it equally focuses on his power-crazed wife and her amplified drive for control. Macbeth and his wife are joined by more than holy matrimony. Shakespeare creates an intriguing relationship that traces the downfall of not a single person, but an entity comprised of two. The concentration is directed on this oneness through the plot progression within Macbeth, in which the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are reversed.

Even upon the first introduction of the Macbeths, it is evident that they do not represent the stereotypical men and women of Shakespeare’s day. In public, Lady Macbeth plays the traditional housewife and hostess while Macbeth is acknowledged by his colleagues as a fierce and loyal warrior; however, the Macbeths behave quite the opposite when in only each other’s company. Lady Macbeth blatantly distinguishes herself as the dominant force in the relationship. For instance, when Macbeth is unsure of how to manage Duncan’s visit to Inverness, Lady Macbeth instantaneously seizes control of the situation, demanding that Macbeth “put/This night’s great business into my dispatch” (1.6. 79-80). This type of behavior from a woman was unheard of in Shakespeare’s time according to Roland Muschat Frye, who states, “This evil consists in Lady Macbeth’s usurping, as a wife, that conjugal authority which Shakespeare’s age regarded as naturally and irrevocably assigned to the husband” (102). Macbeth, however, displays no interest in assuming command and is portrayed as subservient to his overbearing wife, as Frye confirms, “While Lady Macbeth ‘unsexed’ herself, Macbeth profaned his sex by submission to her” (104). Hence, even from the start, the Macbeths’ personalities reflect the inverse of the social standard of that time. As the play proceeds, however, the balance of this relation will reverse.

Macbeth and his wife clearly exchange roles in terms of the amount of ambition they display. Although both characters blatantly crave power, it is Lady Macbeth who is initially presented as the driving force in the relationship. Her intentions are purely directed toward obtaining immediate power. For example, upon first learning about the witches’ predictions, she immediately devises a murder plot and takes charge of the situation. This is made evident as she coldly explains to her husband, “Only look up clear,/To alter favor ever is to fear.