After reading Acts I and II of Macbeth, I was most intrigued
by the constant emasculation of Macbeth by his wife. It is clear that Lady Macbeth “wears the pants” in
this marriage. She is displayed in
these two acts as more driven and unshaken; unlike her husband, once she makes
up her mind there is no wavering or turning back.
We
first see Lady Macbeth in 1.5 when she is reading the letter her husband has
written her about his encounter with the witches. Immediately upon reading the letter, she is willing to do
anything to realize the prophesy and seize the crown. This is certainly
different than Macbeth’s reaction in 1.3; he know what he must do in order to
become king, yet he is very uneasy about it and begins to engage in an internal
argument with himself. In Lady
Macbeth’s soliloquy starting a 1.5.13, she begins to list all of Macbeth’s
qualities that make him less of a man and less able to complete such a task as
killing Duncan. “Yet I do fear thy
nature./It is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness/ To catch the nearest way.”
(1.5.14-16). The ability to
produce milk is obviously something unique to females. By stating that her husband is “too
full o’th’ milk” is extremely emasculating.
Once
Macbeth enters, Lady Macbeth acts as though she is a football coach giving
Macbeth the play and a pep talk.
“To beguile the time,/ Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye,/ Your hand, your tongue. Look like the’ innocent flower,/ But be
the serpent under’t…/Only look up clear./ To alter favour ever is to fear./
Leave all the rest to me.” (1.5.61-71).
Almost always in Shakespeare’s time, the man takes the position of
authority and leadership, while the woman remains submissive. Here, we have the complete reversal
and, strangely, Macbeth doesn’t seem to be upset by this. He follows his wife’s every direction
without an argument of who’s in charge.
Later, in 1.7, Lady Macbeth again mocks her husband and ridicules him
for acting “unmanly.” “When you
durst do it, the you were a man;/ And to be more than what you were, you would/
Be so much more the man.../I have given suck, and know/ How tender ‘tis to love
the babe that milks me./ I would, while it was smiling in my face,/ Have
plucked my nipple from his boneless gums/ And dashed the brains out, had I so
sworn/ As you have done to this.” (1.7.49-59). In this instance, not only is she emasculating her husband,
but she is also de-feminizing herself by claiming that she would so brutally and
violently abandon her maternal instincts in order to get what she wants.
