Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's relationship

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's relationship

1. Different perspectives of their relationship

   • Loving
     • Macbeth loves his wife, which leaves him open to her manipulation.
     • Not much love in the relationship as people married for money, social status, family connections and power.
     • After Lady Macbeth's suicide he talks in his soliloquy about how meaningless life is without her.
   • Manipulative
     • Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth.
       • Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth about his insecurities (manliness) and takes advantage of his love for her
       • She uses belittling insults
         • "so green and pale... coward"
       • She mocks his own words
         • "What beast was't then, / That made you break this enterprise to me?"
       • Rhetorical question
         • "was the hope drunk, / Wherein you dress'd yourself?"
       • Emotional blackmail
         • "From this time / Such I account thy love"
       • Imperatives.
         • "screw your courage to the sticking place"
   • When Lady Macbeth receives the message from her husband claiming that he has earned the title of Thane of Cawdor, she is proud but critical.

2. Similarities and differences between the characters

   • Macbeth's cherishes his wife
   • Lady Macbeth may only be using her husband for power.
   • Both ambitious

3. Key quotations

   • "I would... Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums/And dashed the brains out had I so sworn as you have done to this." - Lady Macbeth to Macbeth
   • "Yet do I fear thy nature it is too full o' milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way" - Lady Macbeth persuading Macbeth
   • "My dearest love" - Macbeth to Lady Macbeth. "Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!" - Lady Macbeth to Macbeth
   • "That I may pour my spirits in thine ear" - Lady Macbeth to Macbeth

4. What the Jacobean audience would have thought

   • Shocked at the strong character of Lady Macbeth and the submissiveness of Macbeth.
   • Reminded of their beloved queen: Elizabeth I through the character of Lady Macbeth.