A Grade 9 essay I completed for English Literature (AQA) GCSE on 'How does Shakespeare present the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth?' in the extract (from Act 2 Scene 2, lines 47 to 60) and in the whole play.
How does Shakespeare present the relationship between Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth?
In this extract, Act 2 Scene 2, lines 47 to 60, Shakespeare presents Macbeth and
Lady Macbeth’s relationship as an opposite to couples from their time of a patriarchal
society. During this era, Men were seen as dominant and strong, holding a lot more
power/status compared to their women counterparts; who were expected to stay at
home, act gentle and fragile and follow their partners orders. ‘Macbeth’ challenges
traditional gender roles of masculinity and femininity and reverses them, with Lady
Macbeth as the strong, influential, leading character in the relationship.
Lady Macbeth’s dominance in their relationship is often shown by forceful
commands, for example ‘Go carry them and smear the sleepy grooms with blood’.
This character starts her sentence with the imperative verb of ‘go’ to assert her
power over Macbeth right from the beginning, which is effective as it creates the
impression of her leaving no room for any questions (or her taking no for an answer).
We can infer this is effective as Macbeth only replies with three short lines which
makes him appear intimidated by his wife. In addition, Lady Macbeth also explores
topics with vivid visual imagery, such as ‘blood’, ‘devil’ and ‘daggers’ which have
negative, violent and evil connotations - which are the total opposite associations of
femininity – to shock the audience by hearing a patriarchal woman saying this. Lady
Macbeth in this scenario juxtaposes with Macbeth, who’ll ‘go no more’ to the room
where he killed Duncan, and can’t ‘look on ‘t again’ at the bloody scene and
‘daggers’ – showing his remorse. This portrays him as weak, almost how a
stereotypical patriarchal woman should act, which is ironic, as we know Lady
Macbeth appears anything but like this in their relationship.
Shakespeare presents Macbeth's relationship as toxic in this extract, seen through
derogatory remarks Lady Macbeth targets at her partner. She belittles him in a
childlike manner, remarking on his supposed immaturity: ‘‘Tis the eye of childhood
that fears a painted devil’. This is extremely insensitive to compare him to a child
scared of scary pictures, when he has just been pushed by Lady Macbeth into killing
the King, and is now emotionally scarred by what he’s done. Lack of respect is
shown through this and other phrases i.e. ‘unbend your noble strength’ and ‘infirm of
purpose’. As Lady Macbeth recurrently questions Macbeth and answers as if
mockingly parenting Macbeth, ‘Why did you carry these…?’, ‘They have to stay
there, reinforcing the lack of respect – even though Macbeth should be well
respected as he’s a brave, great soldier and thane. Constantly putting Macbeth down
takes away his masculinity, in addition to manipulating his emotions to make him feel
like he is not good enough. His responses are short and vague in return to Lady
Macbeths long and questioning jabs, which reflects in him feeling not able to speak –
which comes from this toxic relationship.
During this extract Macbeth's relationship is presented as full of tension. This is
because both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth know they are guilty of King Duncan’s
regicide. As the stakes are high to pull off framing Duncan’s death, tension is shown
through increased pace, which represents the little time they have. Lady Macbeth’s
behaviour on the surface looks harsh, however it is a tense situation and it does
seem that she is behaving in a certain way to help her husband and herself. If she
does not act forcefully and quickly to get the job done, people will realise Macbeth
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