Essay on Family Trust in William Shakespeare's Plays

Breaking free of the femininity she claims she would have “plucked my nipple from his boneless gums/ And dashed his brains out” an unbelievable statement especially coming from a woman (1.7.65-66). Lady Macbeth shows again how much more of a man she is than Macbeth by telling him to take initiative in being the masculine figure, he should “Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place/ did then adhere, and yet you would make both” (1.7.57-60). Driving Macbeth’s anima characteristics to be brought farther into his subconscious mind he can’t avoid his emotions anymore. Seeing Banquo’s ghost sitting at the table he cannot contain his anima any longer he becomes hysterical. Lady Macbeth is appalled by his behavior and shouts “Shame itself! / Why do you make such faces? When all's done, / You look but on a stool. (3.4.66-68). Embarrassed by her husband womanly behavior she’s desperately asking him to stop acting this way and even goes on to question “Are you a man” to which he responds “a bold one, that dare look on that/ Which might appal the devil” (3.4.57-60).

Not feeling any remorse, she is able to skillfully let go of guilt and skillfully get rid of evidence. As Macbeth comes back to her after the deed is complete he is very shaken up and extremely paranoid that someone saw him with the bloody daggers. Lady Macbeth tells him, “These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so it will make us mad” (2.2.34). By saying this she believes that you shouldn’t feel guilty about doing evil, you should just get it done and move on because thinking about it will only drive you crazy. Also she thinks when commiting violent acts such as murder make sure to get rid of any evidence that will lead people to believe you are a suspect. Frustrated and upset that her husband came home bathed in blood and the daggers in his hand she states, “Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers.”(2.2.52-53). She is extremely disappointed in Macbeth for being so careless and cannot believe that he did not go through the well thought out plan smoothly. In her eyes he is still a coward and does not know how to behave calmy when feeling guilty.

Correspondingly, Macbeth’s demise is all the more stimulated by his dark partner, Lady Macbeth. Her insecurity as a woman in addition to her own hunger for power is a key supplement to Macbeth’s twisted end. Her reaction to Macbeth’s letter detailing the witches’ prophecy is quite disturbing. She reveals her fear that Macbeth’s nature “is too full o’ the milk of kindness” (1.5.29). This is in spite of the fact that as Thane of Glamis, he is known to be savage and merciless. Then, Lady Macbeth vows to taint Macbeth’s kindness and to “pour my spirits in the thine ear” (1.5.29). Later in the play, before their dinner party for King Duncan, the Lady is found to be doing just this. She kickstarts her husband’s

Lady Macbeth understands Macbeth’s lust for the throne, and lusts for it herself. She also understands his ambition, but feels that her husband might regret and decide against killing Duncan to steal his throne, as she regards to Macbeth as “full o’ the milk of human kindness” (1.5.4). Since Lady Macbeth fears that Macbeth would turn against her and not go through with the plan, she decides that it must be up to her to get it done correctly. She asks that only the “direst cruelty” (1.5.33) fill her, as she gathers everything that is evil to her in order to murder Duncan. Even though Macbeth was hesitant over the idea of murdering Duncan, his wife convinces him that acting on his impulse of killing Duncan is the right thing to do. This shown when Macbeth starts to second guess the thought of murdering his king, and that it should not be done. However, his wife verbally harasses him into agreeing. Lady Macbeth questions his love for her, questions his masculinity, and criticizes his desire to be king by saying, “When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man” (1.5.49-51). As his successfully offends him, he decides that he needs to prove his manhood, his love of his wife, and his ambition to be king, he agrees to murder Duncan.

While Macbeth is hesitant before and during the process of murdering Duncan, Lady Macbeth remains persistent and encourages Macbeth to “only look up clear. To alter favour ever is to fear.” (1.5.78-79). She then proceeds to say, “Leave all the rest to me.” (1.5.80). Before Lady Macbeth is aware of Macbeth’s prophecy, she is considered a pure, honest and a genuine woman. But after Macbeth shares his future, Lady Macbeth develops a greedy aspiration for being crowned Queen. In order for her dream to come true, Lady Macbeth forces her husband to carry out King Duncan’s murder by saying, hypothetically if she had made a promise with Macbeth, even if it was to kill her own child by “dash(ing) the brains out…” (1.7.62-64), she would not withdraw her promise. It is evident at this point the extreme measures Lady Macbeth is willing to pursue in order to fulfill her own selfish ambition. Lady Macbeth’s honest and pure personality transforms her into a selfish, highly driven and manipulative woman. Like Macbeth, Lady Macbeth struggles to deal with the guilt she experiences as a result of her actions, yet she is unable to disguise her guilt with selfish ambition. Her mental stability begins to diminish, which is particularly evident in Act 5. Her guilt becomes noticeable when she begins sleepwalking and sleep talking about

Lady Macbeth’s strength of will persists through the murder of King Duncan as it is she who tries to calm Macbeth after committing the crime by declaring confidently that, “a little water clears us of this deed,” (2.2.67). Afterward, however, Lady Macbeth’s strong and ambitious character begins to deteriorate into madness. Her first sign of weakness occurred when she confessed that she could not have killed the king, revealing a natural woman’s feelings, “had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t” (2.2.13-14). Just as ambition has affected her before more so then Macbeth before the crime, the guilt plagues her now more effectively afterward as she desperately tried to wash away the invisible blood from her sin, “Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfume of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,” (5.1.48-49). Lady Macbeth’s

Macbeth is confused as he is arguing with himself on what he should do. He states reasons not to kill Duncan, because Macbeth is his noble kinsmen and the act would bring dishonor. However, he also states reason why he should kill him, because Macbeth will then become king and fulfill the witches ' fortune. Lady Macbeth, who appears in the beginning as the driving force for the murder of King Duncan, also develops internal conflict. At first, Lady Macbeth seems to be a woman of extreme confidence and will. But, as situations become more and more unstable in the play, guilt develops inside her. For instance, she exclaims; "Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. / Look not so pale. I tell you again, Banquo 's / Burried; he cannot come out on 's grave" (Shakespeare V, ii, 65-67). Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and frets about her evil wrongdoings because she is extremely guilty of her influence on Macbeth to commit the murder. Lady Macbeth reacts emotionally and dwells on her actions as guilt eats at her soul.

With the visit to King Duncan, the King announces that his son Malcolm will be heir to the throne. In Macbeth’s mind, all he can think about is murdering the King and all that will come along with it. Macbeth sends a letter to his wife telling of all that has happened and to prepare for the King’s visit. In order to keep the murder in her mind she doesn’t want anything to get in her way, so she even goes to the point of seeking evil and not wanting to be a women-afraid of the feminine ways which will interfere in the murder. When Lady Macbeth says, “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; (I v ll. 44-47) it shows how far Lady Macbeth is willing to go to make sure her husband and herself gets to the top. She even goes to the point to call upon the spirits to unsex her and fill her with cruelty to make sure that here feminine ways don’t cause the plan to go wrong.

On the contrary, Lady Macbeth begins as a ruthless woman. She has a manipulative and controlling character, convincing Macbeth to kill King Duncan; she will do anything to gain power. When she says, “How tender ‘tis to love the babe…I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out” (I.vii. 55-58), she shows her ruthlessness and her “bad” ambition. In her “role reversal” with Macbeth, she gains somewhat of a conscience and realizes her guilt. When she tells him, “You must leave this” (III. ii. 35), she wants Macbeth to forget about his plan to murder Banquo’s family. She is very hesitant about committing another murder and does not want Macbeth to follow through with his plan.

She thinks Macbeth is a coward, she feels Macbeth can’t do anything just like a baby. “Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures. ‘Tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed, I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal, For it must seem their guilt”(2.2 line 52-57). Lady Macbeth just wants power, she doesn’t care about killing other people at all, she’s cold-hearted and crazy, she would do anything to get power. However, after she feels like she’ll lose all of her power, she goes crazy. ”Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” (5.1 line 49-50). When she thinks about losing her power, she went crazy, she’s afraid of losing her power and afraid of what would happen to her, she made her own

In the development of the plot, Lady Macbeth finds her rationalism, removed of “all natural instincts and sensibilities of her sex”, to be in conflict with her conscience (Rolfe 31). For instance, she speaks of ineradicable blood in her sleep, evidence of a deeply disturbed morality. What is depicted here is the belief that morality is indelible, and its limitations on pure rationalism inevitable; knowledge encourages man to suppress morality, resulting in intrapersonal conflict. Finally, Lady Macbeth commits suicide “by self and violent hands.” (V, ix, 42). Earlier, she is seen muttering about her husband’s homicidal acts, whereupon the doctor diagnoses her as suicidal, and it is evident that her knowledge of Macbeth’s deeds is causing great distress. Shakespeare demonstrates that ignorance is often preferable to knowing because man is innately psychologically weak whilst ambition is oblivious to the inner damage it may cause. Initially a singularly evil character, Shakespeare ultimately depicts Lady Macbeth as sympathetic through the use of pathos.

A deadly combination of ambition and guilt poisons both Macbeth and his wife and leads to their deaths in the end. Ruined by her desire for power, Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness is more vivid and guilt seems to affect her more than her husband, even though he is responsible for more crimes. Her request to the spirits to “unsex [her] here,/ And fill [her], from the crown to the toe, top-full/ Of direst cruelty!” is contrasted as the more guilty she feels, the more weak and sensitive she become, a polar opposite of her usual masculine and bold self (1.5.44-46). As a result, she is unable to cope with the guilt and meets her ultimate demise by taking her life. This has an immediate effect on Macbeth: the almost always apparent tension of ambition and guilt disappears. He does not seem interested in living and is ready to face death in a manner more relatable to his former self rather than the murderer he has become. Moreover, Macbeth’s final remark is “Arm, arm, and out!”,

With all the questions in Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors in mind, I feel the most consistently asked is how resilient are family bonds? This question is asked on many occasions throughout the play and ties into the MOWW, which is family always comes first. The closing scene where Egeon says “Not know my voice? O time's extremity, Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue in seven short years that here my only son Knows not my feeble key of untuned cares? Though now this grainèd face of mine be hid in sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow…tell me thou art my son Antipholus.” By doing this Egeon shows how much Antipholus and his family mean to him.

When she learns of the predictions of the witches, she immediately goes to work on figuring out how to get her husband into the throne of power. She fears that her husband is too kind and that “impedes thee from the golden round” (1.5.31). She manipulates her power over and tells him that he would not be a man if he did not kill Duncan, "When you durst do it, then you were a man;/and, to be more than what you were, you would/ be so much more the man" (1.7.56-58). Using her power over her husband, Lady Macbeth convinces him to kill King Duncan. However as Macbeth becomes power, and becomes more paranoid he begins to be the mastermind of his fate, as Lady Macbeth had once been. Macbeth plans to kill Banquo and Fleance, without communicating with Lady Macbeth about his plans; when he tells her of his plans, she warns him no to, where he responds she should “be innocent of the knowledge” (3.3.51). Macbeth’s plans were not successful, and Fleance escaped, which causes his “fit again. else been perfect.” (3.4.23) When Lady Macbeth was dominant, Macbeth experiences hallucinations, for instance the floating “dagger of the mind.” However, as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relationship shifts, Lady Macbeth is now experiencing hallucinations of the “damn’d spot,” the blood, which shows her guilt for the feeling of committing murder. Her guilt was so great, that while she was sleep walking, she began to re-enact the

Most significantly, Lady Macbeth is able to emasculate her husband repeatedly, possessing the knowledge that in his desperation to prove himself and his manhood to her, he will perform the sinister tasks she wishes him to perform. Macbeth in turn, later echoes Lady Macbeth’s actions as he questions the manhood of the murderers hired to kill Banquo. Such ambitions are further seeded as she continuously builds upon the prosperity the crown would provide should Macbeth be willing to claim it: nobility, power, and vast riches. Her attempts to manipulate are proven successful as Macbeth gives into her demands, proclaiming that, “I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none” in (1, 7, 46-47). This line suggests Macbeth fears losing his masculinity and thus follows the commands of his wife in order to reclaim its solidarity. It is this lurking anxiety dwelling within the two that the reader may observe