Is power generative or destructive? Can a man have both love and power at the same time? Since, we are talking about characteristics, it’s impossible to generalize 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.” Hearing this quote coming from one of the wisest human being, will remind us directly of Macbeth. Macbeth has done all of his power to satisfy the love he has 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.” The Macbeths love doesn’t maintain the same level of love at the beginning, in the middle, to the end. Through this paper, we will see the love to power ratio in the play for the Macbeths couple. Although power is what most men are seeking, it can take love away from them. For most of men being a thane is a dream, but it is not for Macbeth. By then Macbeth was the thane of Cawdor and Glamis, but he was still under King Duncan. His greediness has no limits. From the first time Lady Macbeth enters the play, Shakespeare wants us to know how much love and the power each one of the couple has. 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 have equal power in the relationship. He is still innocent from the evilness that comes with the prophecy. He still thinks that his wife is the most important thing in his life. We can see how strong in love Macbeth is with his wife. Any couple who are truly in love would agree that love is based on trust; the relationship wouldn’t last a lot without trust. It’s obvious that Macbeth is so in love by trusting someone with such a big secret. From this point on, the ratio of love and power will have its ups and downs. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth has the perfect relationship any couple can have. She appears more superior and authoritative and comes across as manipulative. She decides all the plans for Macbeth and commands him to follow them. In contrast, Macbeth seems to be indecisive and fickle-minded. Even though he is praised by the king and public, the readers discover that he is a submissive and weak 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 himself. 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 the weak and submissive person that Macbeth was at the start. In contrast, Macbeth gets the confidence from the second prophecy of the witches and reaches to a point where he does not even discuss anything with his wife. He becomes a megalomaniac who is despised and feared by the same public that loved him so much. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth fall in 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.
Every superpower has its curse. 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 doesn’t last for too long. 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' th' 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” 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
Given the time period, where men were known to be more powerful than women, it’s obvious that Lady Macbeth doesn’t think that they share an equal power anymore. We can see that Lady Macbeth is more powerful than Macbeth.
After Macbeth goes through with the regicide, Lady Macbeth shows us how much she loves Macbeth. When Macbeth is so scared to go back to plant the evidence to show that the two guards are the ones who killed King Duncan; Lady Macbeth does it to for him. She puts herself in danger just to save Macbeth. 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 almost like a sexual blackmail: “From this time / Such I account thy love' (I.vii.38-39)." Initially, it looks like Lady Macbeth will herself murder Duncan and Macbeth would serve only as an agent in the crime. During her invocation of the powers of darkness (I.v) 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. She claims, "Come to my Womans Brests, / And take my Milke for Gall, you murth'ring Ministers" (I.v.48-49), signaling her desires to be free from tenderness, nurture, and mutuality.
Apart from the obvious sexual innuendos in the play, the key driver of the Macbeths’ relationship is the fulfilment of the witches’ prophecy to kill Duncan. While Macbeth wants fate to take its course, Lady Macbeth wants to take fate in 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 Macbeths into completely different people in the end. Macbeth transforms from being a chivalrous, loved, and well respected man to a fearless murderer and a heartless king, while Lady Macbeth becomes a paranoid, scared woman from being a dominating and controlling person. Going back to Abraham Lincoln’s quote, being a king shows the reader who really Macbeth is. As soon as Macbeth becomes the King of Scotland, he becomes the devil himself. Evil knows no love. For the first time, Macbeth has more power than Lady Macbeth. 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 give 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. To conclude, the relationship of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth is very complicated since it is driven by power that eventually makes them insane. It is clear that Shakespeare uses language to show the change in Macbeth's personality. In the end, he does not feel empathetic towards the death of his Lady Macbeth, a woman he once loved so much. For him his wife’s death was nothing but immaterial. Power reduces the couple’s mad love for each other to merely mad human beings.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William, and Roma Gill. Macbeth. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. Print.
"Mahatma Gandhi Quote." BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. 04 June 2016
"Abraham Lincoln Quote." BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. 04 June 2016.
