Trinity Bell Gamache English 11 April 29th, 2024 Unbiological Twins In the stories both Macbeth and The Crucible there are two characters who are similar. They are Abigail and Lady Macbeth! They both are very manipulative, both for their ambition, and lastly the consequences they both take from their actions. Both of these characters from each story desire the feeling of power and are willing to do whatever it takes for them to be able to have this power. These women are both madly in love with one another. They would do anything and say anything to keep their loved ones safe or try to keep them from loving them. Both stories are based on witchcraft, wanting to gain the power and use witchcraft against their peers or anyone who tries to interrupt their love life or lose the power …show more content…
To hopefully overpower John Proctor's love for his wife and have him all to herself, trying to convince him into leaving with her before she gets caught by the board in Salem because their love is so strong in her eyes. Lady Macbeth gains power by using manipulation and pushing people outside of their comfort zone, trying to make them do things so she can gain all the power she wants. In the story Macbeth the way Lady Macbeth is portrayed, she is portrayed as a persuasive and ambitious woman. She pushes her husband, Mr. Macbeth to hopefully commit to killing the king so he could fulfill the prophecy of becoming the king. She started to bring out her husband's insecurities and questioned his masculinity. Lady Macbeth urges her husband to "screw his courage to the sticking place" and finally take action to get the king's rights. She used her manipulation against her husband because all she wanted was to feel the power of being a queen. The only reason she's pushing him so hard is because she believes in the witches who told a prophecy she heard from one of her
Lady Macbeth did not think he had what it took to become king, "Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o' the milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way" (1.5.16-18). Her reaction to the leader show she knows her husband very well. The “nearest way” for both of them is murder. In an earlier scene, Macbeth had commented, "If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, / Without my stir" (1.3.143-144), but later he assumes that he must murder in order to become king. And this has always been his wife's assumption, which later he beings to follow. Macbeth never senses how much power Lady Macbeth has and how much he influences his political decisions. It is as if he is a robot and she is controlling him. He listenes to almost everything she tells him throughout the play and never second guesses
Lady Macbeth used peer pressure in order for her to gain power as a queen. After reading the letter Macbeth took the time to send to her, Lady Macbeth doubts her husband. “Yet do I fear thy nature;/ It is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness/ To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,/ Art not without ambition, but without/ The illness should attend it” (1, 5, 13-17). Lady Macbeth finds out the fate of her husband, but she still doubts him. In the letter he calls her many nice names, but she ignores them and goes straight to the thought of her having power. She says her husband is too nice to even do anything to ensure his fate comes true. This shows Macbeth has to prove to his wife he will actually do something to prove his loyalty
Apart from directly influencing Macbeth, the witches also vicariously exert control over Lady Macbeth. The prophecies, although being related through Macbeth, have exactly the same effects on his wife. However Lady Macbeth fears that her husband’s nature is “too full o’ the milk of human kindness”. Therefore she resolves to exert her own control over Macbeth, allowing him to become king in the quickest possible way.
The vaulting ambitions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth lead to the death of King Duncan. For the sake of Macbeth's ambition, he is willing to murder his cousin, Duncan. Macbeth realizes that murdering his king is perfidious and blasphemous because every king is set on throne by God; he is driven by his undying aspiration to steal the throne and be king: "I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on th' other." Lady Macbeth is also moved by her avarice to be alongside her husband on the throne. She uses all her strength and intelligence for evil purposes; this confident and arrogant authoritarian instills the plan of the murder (of Duncan) to Macbeth: "We fail? / But screw your courage to the sticking place / And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep."
Instead of encouraging him to do right, his wife, played the biggest role in his demise. Lady Macbeth used different strategies to persuade Macbeth. For example, she questioned his manliness to trigger his anger because she knew he wouldn’t want his own wife to question him. So, he followed along, uncertain of what his actions might cause to himself and to the people around him. “Are you afraid to be the same man in reality as the one you wish to be?” said Lady Macbeth, meaning that she knew Macbeth does In fact want to become king and is onboard with idea, he was just not ready to take actions in order to achieve the position.
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.
manliness and tempt him to prove to her he is strong. On the other hand, Macbeth, being a man at that time, holds legitimate power over. Lady Macbeth, because women were expected to stay home, cook, clean. and take care of the children. We can clearly see that Lady Macbeth isn't one of these women; she is strong-willed and determined. The The more comments that she made, the stronger she got.
Power is a theme used by Shakespeare throughout the play Macbeth. The plot involves Macbeth trying to gain more power. Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill Duncan so that he will become king in his place. Macbeth also is persuaded to kill anyone who threatens his chances of being king, including Banquo. Power is used by certain characters in the play to influence others. One such character is Lady Macbeth. In the beginning of the play, she is a strong-willed character. She takes on the role of a dominant male. She has great influence over her husband, who appears to be weaker than she is. It is her influence that convinces Macbeth to murder Duncan. Lady Macbeth is the dominant partner at the beginning of the play, she persuades Macbeth to achieve his goal, and she plans the murder of Duncan.
Lady Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare’s most famous and frightening female characters. As she is Macbeth’s wife, her role is significant in his rise and fall from royalty. She is Macbeth’s other half. During Shakespearean times, women were regarded as weak insignificant beings that were there to give birth and look beautiful. They were not thought to be as intelligent or equal to men. Though in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the highest influence in Macbeth’s life. Her role was so large; in fact, that she uses her position to gain power, stay strong enough to support her unstable Lord, and fails miserably while their relationship falls apart. Everything about Lady Macbeth is enough to create the perfect villain because of her ability to manipulate everyone around her. It appears that even she can’t resist the perfect crime.
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.
The Relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth Throughout the play of "Macbeth" written by William Shakespeare there is an on-going relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. This relationship is one of the functions of the play that creates most of the actions, reactions, moods, feelings and attitudes. Macbeth's relationship with his wife was not always great. This is shown in one of there conversations; MACBETH: "We will proceed no further in this business: He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon. "(Macbeth,I,vii, )
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.
Macbeth rejects conformation to traditional gender roles in its portrayal of Lady Macbeth’s relationship with her husband, her morals and their effect on her actions, and her hunger for power. Her regard for Macbeth is one of low respect and beratement, an uncommon and most likely socially unacceptable attitude for a wife to have towards her spouse at the time. She often ignores morality and acts for the benefit of her husband, and subsequently herself. She is also very power-hungry and lets nothing stand in the way of her success. Lady Macbeth was a character which challenged expectations of women and feminism when it was written in the seventeenth century.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s desire and ambition lead to her eventual downfall. When Lady Macbeth hears of Macbeth’s prophecy, she dreams of the glory and high-standing that awaits being queen. She cannot withhold her ambitions, and she is willing to manipulate fate to bring about Macbeth’s prophecy. She invokes evil spirits to be filled from head to toe with cruelty to do the evil actions necessary to make Macbeth king and to remove all remorse and pity for her action from her heart.