How does the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth change throughout the play?

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GCSE English and English Literature

Macbeth Model essay

How does the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth change throughout the play?

In the early stages of the play, the Macbeths seem to be a devoted couple. Their love and concern for each other remains strong and constant throughout the play, but their relationship changes dramatically following the murder of King Duncan in Act 2.

The Macbeths’ relationship is presented in very strong terms in Act 1 by virtue of their sense of togetherness and resolve when separated by war and when placed under enormous pressure and temptation by the Witches’ prophesies. Macbeth’s initial reaction to the prophesy of his future kingship in Act 1, scene 3, is skepticism and disbelief: “Say from whence/You owe this strange intelligence? or why/Upon this blasted heath you stop our way/With such prophetic greeting?”, but this changes to amazement and wonder when he hears from Ross about his promotion to the Thane of Cawdor, in the same scene, and he immediately thinks about using bloody means to become king: “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,/Shakes so my single state of man”, but as this quotation also shows, he is afraid of its treasonable implications.

His devotion to Lady Macbeth is immediately apparent in Act 1, scene 5, when he writes her a letter in strictest confidence informing her about the prophesies, although there is a note of inferiority and intimidation, and a sense of duty in his comments: “This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness”. Yet it is a sign of their understanding that they independently come to the same conclusion about killing the king. This is apparent in Lady Macbeth’s instant response to his letter:

Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round.

Lady Macbeth knows her husband’s weaknesses though, “yet do I fear thy nature;/ It is too full o' the milk of human kindness” and is prepared to accept them and if necessary take the initiative by killing the king herself: “you shall put/This night's great business into my dispatch”. This also shows her devotion, love and commitment to him: they see their future together: he says, “of what greatness is promised thee”, and she says, “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be/What thou art promised.” At this point in the play, Lady Macbeth shows her strength of purpose by calling on the spirits of evil to “unsex me here”, and to rid her of any womanly compassion in order to carry out the murder of Duncan.

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The first major threat to their relationship is Macbeth’s change of mind about killing Duncan: “We will proceed no further in this business” in Act 1, scene 7. This challenges Lady Macbeth’s dominance in the partnership. Ironically, it is their shared love that she uses as a weapon to regain dominance: “From this time/Such I account thy love.” Her aggressive and determined nature (“then you were a man”; “Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,/And dash'd the brains out” referring to a sucking baby), together with her simplicity of plot (drug the king’s guards), also impresses Macbeth:

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