Macbeth

MACBETH

In the tragic drama Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, the personality of Macbeth, a troubled Scottish king, transforms dramatically during the extent of the sixteenth century play. Macbeth’s attitude towards his friends, his wife and his actions drastically change as the play unravels and his thirst for domination grows. Each of the transformations will be analysed in the following paragraphs.



Throughout the duration of the text, Macbeth’s love towards his wife slowly but steadily dissolves as he becomes more intent on having control over his country. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth’s affection for his wife is clearly apparent as he is very submissive towards her. Macbeth’s submissiveness towards Lady Macbeth plays a big role in the evaluation of this play, especially in the opening acts, when his love for her is so strong that she is able to persuade him to carry out the murder of King Duncan. The text furthermore refers to his love for Lady Macbeth as he addresses her   as “My dearest love”[1] and   “My dearest partner in greatness”. [2]However, as the drama progresses Macbeth’s love for Lady Macbeth begins to fade away. As soon as Macbeth becomes the king of Scotland he no longer asks for Lady Macbeth’s advice about the deeds he plans to assign, and with growing boldness believes that Lady Macbeth should be “innocent of the knowledge”.[3]He instructs the murder of Banquo as well as the murders of the Macduff family without consulting Lady Macbeth, gradually making it clearer that he does not really need her anymore. Eventually, Lady Macbeth becomes mentally unwell after absorbing the news of all of Macbeth’s assigned murders. Unsurprisingly Macbeth does not rush to her aid deciding that “(Macbeth will have) none of it”[4] and tells the doctors to “use some drug” [5]to cure her. Amazingly, after being informed of his wife’s death, Macbeth blatantly utters “there would have been a time for such thought”, expressing absolutely no concern...