Is power generative or destructive? Can a man have both love and power at the same time? Since we are talking about characteristics, it is difficult to sum up an answer.. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.” (Engebretson) This quote coming from one of the wisest human beings will remind us directly of Macbeth. Macbeth did his best to show the love for Lady Macbeth. His love is so powerful that it leads to war and betrayals. On the other side, does love always last? Abraham Lincoln stated, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” (Irwin) The Macbeths love does not maintain the same level of love from the beginning till the very end. Through this paper, we will see the love to power ratio in the play for the Macbeth couple even though power is what most men are seeking for, it can take love away from them.
For most of men being a thane is a dream, but not for Macbeth. By then Macbeth was the thane of Cawdor and Glamis, but he was still under the power of King Duncan. His greediness had no limits. From the first time Lady Macbeth enters the play, Shakespeare wants us to know how much love and power they have. Macbeth sends a letter to Lady Macbeth telling her about what happened with the three witches “This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell.” When Macbeth used the phrase “my dearest partner of greatness” we can see that they had equal power in relationships. He is still blameless from the evilness that accompanies the prediction. He thinks that his wife is the most vital thing in his life. We can see how strong Macbeth is in love with his wife. Any couple who is truly in love would agree that love is based on trust; the relationship would not last for a long time without trust. It is obvious that Macbeth is so in love by trusting someone with such a big secret. From this point on, the ratio of love in power will have its ups and downs. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth has perfect relationships as any couple can have. She seems more predominant and definitive and appears to be manipulative She chooses all the arrangements for Macbeth and makes him to follow them. In contrast, Macbeth seems to be indecisive and fickle-minded. Despite the fact that he is applauded by the ruler and the public, the perusers find that he is an easygoing and powerless man.
The power paradigm shifts by the end of the play. By the end, Lady Macbeth becomes insane somnambulist because of her guilt, while Macbeth becomes authoritative and takes all the decisions on his own. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, takes responsibility for killing Duncan, wife and children of Macduff, and Banquo. She realizes that nothing can get rid of her guilt and becomes weak and submissive person as Macbeth was at the beginning. Interestingly, Macbeth gets the certainty from the second prediction of the witches and reaches to a point where he doesn't talk about anything with his better half. He becomes a megalomaniac who is despised and feared by the same public that loved him so much. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth fall into the trap of greed and selfishness that the desire for power blindfolds them and ruin their relationship. In the end, Macbeth is hardly worried about his wife’s death.
Each superpower has its condemnation. The curse of a prophecy is knowing the future. Through the play, it was clear that Macbeth was cursed. He starts losing his sense and love. Equal power between the Macbeths’ relationships does not keep going for a really long time. As soon as, Lady Macbeth looks at the letter, she says “Glamis thou art and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win” (Shakespeare). She was worried if Macbeth has what it takes to be a king. She doubts his power and masculinity. We can see that she thinks of herself more of a man than Macbeth is, form her famous speech:
Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood. Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry “Hold, hold!” (Act.Scene.lines). 1-14 (Shakespeare)
Given the time period, where men were known to be more powerful than women, clearly Lady Macbeth did not surmise that they share an equivalent power any longer. We can see that Lady Macbeth is more powerful than her man.
After Macbeth goes through with the regicide, her wife shows us how much she loves him. At the point when Macbeth is so frightened to backtrack to plant the confirmation to demonstrate that the two watchmen are the ones who slaughtered King Duncan; Lady Macbeth does it for him. She puts herself in danger just to save her husband. In my humble opinion, Shakespeare carefully intertwines power, sex, and love in the play. It is generally agreed that Lady Macbeth wanted her husband to kill Duncan to prove his manhood. The call to murder Duncan is is verging on like a sexual blackmail: “From this time Such I account thy love” At first, it would appear that Lady Macbeth will herself murder Duncan and Macbeth would serve just as a specialist in the crime. During her invocation of the powers of darkness, she requests to be transformed into a masculine destroyer. She begs the demons to de-womanize her from a natural life giver to something hideous. Lady Macbeth claims, "Come to my Women Brests, And take my Milke for Gall, you murthering Ministers" signaling her desires to be free from tenderness, nurture, and mutuality. (Shakespeare)
Aside from the undeniable sexual insinuations in the play, the key driver of the Macbeths' relationship is the satisfaction of the witches' prescience to murder Duncan. While Macbeth wants fate to take its course, Lady Macbeth wants to take fate into her own hands. Unfortunately, what drove their relationship also lead to its fall. She claims, "Come, you spirits, that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe topfull, of direst cruelty" (I.V. 38-43). The obsession with power transforms Macbeth's into completely different people in the end. Macbeth transforms from being chivalrous, loved, and well-respected the man to a fearless murderer and a heartless king, while Lady Macbeth becomes a paranoid, scared woman from being a dominating and controlling person.
Doing a reversal to Abraham Lincoln's quote, being a ruler demonstrates the peruser who truly Macbeth is. When Macbeth turns into the King of Scotland, he turns into the demon himself. Evil knows no adoration. For the first time, Macbeth has more power than Lady Macbeth. Notwithstanding, his love to her starts to disappear. It goes from a little love, when he tells her “So shall I, love, And so, I pray, be you” when he is planning to kill his best friend Banquo. To no love at all when he gives his famous speech “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more, It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” Where he doesn’t even care about Lady Macbeth’s death. His greediness blinds any kind of love or mercy.
Works Cited
Engebretson, Kath. International Handbook Of Inter-Religious Education. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010. Print.
Irwin, Tim. Impact. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc., 2014. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Machbeth. Ware: Wordsworth, 1993. Print.
