Relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

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Relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

As the play proceeds, the audience witness the changing nature of the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. In the beginning lady Macbeth is depicted as the more strong-willed and more steadfast of the couple, while Macbeth is kinder but less decisive. Also at the beginning of the play Macbeth uses terms of endearment towards his wife while receiving almost none in return. Near the end of the play, however, the audience sees a great change within the couple. Lady Macbeth’s madness makes Macbeth the stronger of the two, and his indifference to her death also contrasts mainly with his warm words in the earlier scenes of the play.

In Act I scene v when we are first introduced to the character of lady Macbeth the audience immediately sees how ambitious she is and how determined she is to see her husband crowned. We also hear the first term of endearment used by Macbeth when he addresses lady Macbeth as his “dearest partner of greatness” in his letter telling of the witches’ prophesies.


It is shown in this scene that Lady Macbeth has the darker, colder and harder personality of the couple. First she says that her husband is “too full o’ the milk of human kindness” to kill Duncan to become king. This helps the audience justify the feeling that Lady Macbeth is the stronger of the two. Then she goes on to produce the Elizabethan audience’s superstition with a soliloquy calling upon “spirits” to “unsex” her to make her man enough and cruel enough to execute her plan for Duncan’s demise and her husband’s coronation.

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In terms of their relationship, this shows that perhaps there are certain aspects of his wife to which Macbeth is unaware. Throughout the play it is only the audience who is party to Lady Macbeth’s references to the supernatural. This idea unfolds into the ongoing theme of deception throughout the play.


Although Lady Macbeth seems to be the stronger in the relationship, she must still resort of manipulation and coercion to direct Macbeth to the path she wishes him to take. She aggressively attacks his manhood by saying things like “Art thou afraid” and “would’st thou live a ...

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