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Power struggles in macbeth
Power struggles in macbeth
Power struggles in macbeth
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In the scenes given, Lady Macbeth has already been shown to be a vicious, evil, and bold person. She’s even two-faced, especially when she acts overly nice toward King Duncan despite her internal plans to murder him. She does things her own, unique way and will stop at nothing for Macbeth or herself to reach success, even if it means murdering someone or in general committing a crime. She wants her husband to become the new king, and for him to man up. To her, it is strange how Macbeth can be so timid and fearful when he would end up gaining from the situation, and even insults her husband to his opposite personality. Furthermore, in this scene, Lady Macbeth stays consistent. Her objectives does not change, nor does the tactic change. However,
We are first introduced to Lady Macbeth at the beginning of Act 1, scene 5, through the letter that Macbeth sends her. This shows her to be his, ‘dearest partner of greatness’ and that he has no secrets from her. The witches’ prophecies intensify her ambitions for her husband, to be the King of Scotland. Lady Macbeth is the one who encourages him to kill the king and she not only encourages him, she makes all the plans herself. We see how clever she is and how she understands her husband well, she knows he has great ambitions, but she also knows that he is honourable and mentally weak:
The tragedy of Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, the play itself is full of so many key points. He has a way of bringing certain components together to make the tragedy an actual tragedy. Macbeth is full of nobility,bravery, greed, blinded reason, guilt, death, treason, and many more. Shakespeare has a way making his audience think of the physiological dealing of the characters in the play. There are many themes in the play to make the physiological part of the play be considered and the major ones are, fair and foul and foul is fair theme, how ambition can subvert reason, and the major theme of the play is guilt, which takes it’s tole on a few characters in the play.
So far, in the play, Lady Macbeth has been shown to be a very powerful and ambitious character. After reading Macbeth's letter, she says, "Thou wouldst be great, / Art not without ambition, but without / The illness that should attend it"(I.v 17-19), here, she is saying that he needs more evil or "illness" in him to become King, and therefore implies that she will "poison" him and give him the illness he needs to increase his ambition. Here she is also undermining her husband's authority (which is very unusual for a woman in the Elizabethan era) by saying he is unable to become a King, and is undermining his masculinity as she is thinking about things that a man would usually take charge of. To try to persuade Macbeth to kill Duncan when the audience first see them meet on stage, she is very bold, "Your hand, you tongue, look like th'innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't" (I.v 65-66), she shows her strong female identity, whose ambitions speak for her obsession with power.
Lady Macbeth was “choked with ambition”. Her infatuation to be queen is the single feature that Shakespeare developed far beyond that of her counterpart in the historical story he used as his source. Lady Macbeth persistently taunts her husband for his lack of courage, even though we know of his bloody deeds on the battlefield. At this point in time, with all her will converging towards seizing the throne, she has shown no signs of remorse or hesitance in her actions and hence preventing the events in the narrative from digressing away from imperative themes and climaxes of the play.
To metamorphose ones character through years of experience and age is salutary. To deteriorate ones character through a short period of fast decisions and unsure actions is perilous. Lady Macbeth proves the truth to this theory. The impulsive mistakes and power-hungry tactics littered the journey Lady MacBeth paves throughout this play that ultimately ends in her death. She feels overwhelmed by all that is happening, both physically and mentally, and decides to end her own life.
Macbeth's desire to become king is strongly supported by his wife, Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is a highly ambitious woman who, like her husband, is willing to do anything to obtain power. Shakespeare uses a series of imagery to vividly portray the desire for power in Lady Macbeth's soliloquy: “Come, you spirits/That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,/And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/Of direst cruelty!” To achieve her ambition, Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth “to catch the nearest way.” This means she wants him to kill Duncan so that he can become king. However, she fears that Macbeth is “too full o' th' milk of human kindness” to “catch the nearest way.” When Macbeth is reluctant to kill Duncan, Lady Macbeth starts attacking his masculinity. “Then you were a man,” she said. Lady Macbeth also uses the power of emotional blackmail to manipulate Macbeth into killing Duncan.
In general, it could be said that Lady Macbeth takes advantage of her femininity and uses it and her frail image to manipulate the situation to suit her purposes. In Act 1 Scene 7, Lady Macbeth ‘bullies’ her husband by doubting his masculinity and provoking a response. She called Macbeth “afraid” and a “coward”. I am inclined to think that Lady Macbeth chose these words as Macbeth values his courage and fierce nature as it has positioned him highly in society. It is possible that Macbeth’s greatest vulnerability is his love for Lady Macbeth, and that enables her to exploit his love for power.
Lady Macbeth is a very loving wife to Macbeth and she wants to do anything she can for him to achieve his goals. She just takes it a little too far, and she puts too much pressure on Macbeth to commit crimes that he is not sure he wants to do. After Macbeth sends her a letter about the witches’ premonitions, Lady Macbeth is no longer the sweet innocent lady we expect her to be. She turns into a person who is just as ambitious as her husband and she wants to do whatever it takes to help him get Duncan out of the way. She even goes to the point of calling Macbeth a coward, and mocking his bravery when he fails to complete the job. She is even willing to do it herself (plant the bloody knife with the guard). Lady Macbeth is constantly putting the pressure on Macbeth to do things that he is not sure about. She almost turns into a bully who dares Macbeth to go out and do evil things. She even says in a soliloquy that she wants to be released of all her morals and values so that she can help him commit these crimes.
After struggling with the thought of killing Duncan, Macbeth is reprimanded by Lady Macbeth for his lack of courage. She informs him that killing the king will make him a man, insinuating that he isn’t a man if he doesn’t go through with the murder. This develops Lady Macbeth as a merciless, nasty, and selfish woman. She will say, or do anything to get what she desires, even if it means harming others. It is this selfishness that makes it hard for the reader to be empathetic towards her later in the play, as it is evident in this scene that her hardships were brought on by herself. If she hadn’t insisted on the murder, she would not be driven in...
Lady Macbeth is the first to strategize a way to kill Duncan. As a character foil to Macbeth she juxtaposes their possession of guilt and ruthlessness, which creates irony and excitement to the play. Originally, she is very power hungry and wants to utilize her husband’s position in status to become queen. Macbeth objects to the plan to kill Duncan because he believes Duncan is Macbeth’s kinsman, host, and an overall virtuous ruler (Act. 1 Scene. 7) and thus feels very guilty for taking advantage of Duncan’s trusting quality towards the Macbeth family. She refers to Macbeth as weak and rebukes his manhood (Act 1. Scene 7.) . As the play progresses, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have a character role reversal of their possession of guilt and ruthlessness. The character foil is extant, however Macbeth’s ruthlessness overcomes his guilt, and Lady Macbeth’s guilt vanquishes her drive for power. In addition to an alteration in character foils, Shakespeare introduces situational irony because now Lady Macbeth succumbs to the weakness Macbeth once possessed and Macbeth is the one who is formidable and ambitious. Macbeth’s ability to transcend his guilt exemplifies his struggle for power and reinforces the theme of evil ambition because Macbeth is able to secure the throne and power only by mass
Even though Lord Macbeth is generally the one to have the final say in the many killings that take place in the play, Lady Macbeth plays the role of a villain alongside him. She mocks her Lord if he frets over something she has instructed him to do, saying he would be less of a man if he does not follow through on their plan (I. vii. 56-57). She gives Lord Macbeth a short lecture in deceptiveness when they are planning to kill King Duncan (I. vi. 73-78). She also prepared the daggers for Macbeth to kill Duncan in advance (II. ii. 15-16). Though her Lord was still having doubts, she was, in the most literal sense, ready to go in for the kill.
In the first few acts, Lady Macbeth is represented as a ruthless woman, prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure that her husband – Macbeth – becomes king. Her drive and ambition are clear when she tells Macbeth that the witches’ prophecies will certainly come true. She appears stronger than Macbeth and doubts her husband’s ability to do what is necessary: “I fear thy nature; it is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness”- (Lady Macbeth A1 S5 L4). She recognizes that she must be in control and regrets being a woman: “Come you spirits, that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from crown to the toe-top fill of direst cruelty” (Lady Macbeth A1 S5 L30). Shakespeare portrays that women’s emotions are naturally soft, kind, and loving, so much so that Lady Macbeth wants to lose all such emotion and replace it with the opposite. The audience is left shocked by this dramatic cry.
In Lady MacBeth's first seen her character is portrayed as one that has been seized with evil intentions. Lady MacBeth deceptively convinces her husband to murder Duncan so she will become queen. Evil has possessed her to the point that she provokes her husband into doing evil. This is accomplished by attacking MacBeth's manhood. Lady MacBeth convinces him to believe he should kill MacBeth in order to prove himself of being even more of a man. Lady MacBeth said, "When you durst do it, then you were a man; and to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man." Lady MacBeth appears to be overconfident in her evil plans in order to persuade MacBeth. When MacBeth questions the odds of her plans working Lady MacBeth responds by saying, "We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking place And we'll not fail." Lady MacBeth's evil character has spread uncontrollable worst on MacBeth, resulting in him following her evil and treacherous footsteps.
The Change of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in William Shakespeare's Play Throughout the preliminary scenes of the tragedy the character of Macbeth is portrayed as a brave and noble soldier. He does not seem the kind of man who could come up with the ludicrous notion of committing such a horrifying act as murder. However we soon witness “brave Macbeth” rapidly propelled into the obscure world of darkness and evil. Overwhelming confirmation that Macbeth has succumbed to the witches’ prophecies arrives when Macbeth reveals “the greatest is behind”.
Depending on the version of "Macbeth" and how it was presented, Lady Macbeth came across as strong and forceful in her choice of words. Prior to Macbeth's very first murder of King Duncan, Macbeth had been second guessing himself about whether or not he would follow through with his initial plan. After the dinner party he had hosted Macbeth states, "We will proceed no further in this business. He hath honored me of late, and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people" (I. VII. 32-34). This shows the audience that Macbeth decided not to murder the king because the king thought highly of him. King Duncan was the man whom Macbeth was to protect, his job was to be his host. The audience then hears the harsh words of Lady Macbeth, who questions her husband's manliness. As her words are recognized by Macbeth, he does not show hurt. He tries to explain that a man was to honor his king, not steel the glory from him. As Macbeth becomes more insulted by his evil wife, he gives into the idea of becoming the king himself, he would have all of the land and be honored by all of the people. Here, Lady Macbeth has convinced and pressured her husband into murdering their guest. Throughout th...