Sunday, August 9, 2015

In Scene 7 (Act 1), Macbeth is on the verge of giving up his plan to murder Duncan. How does Lady Macbeth encourage him?Act 1, Scene 7

I'm not sure "encourage" is the word I would use to
describe what Lady Macbeth does to her husband in Act 1.7 of Shakespeare's
Macbeth.  Manipulate, humiliate, and badger are more appropriate
words. 


She, in effect, says that he looks green and pale
since he's lost his hope.  She says she will consider his love for her to be just like
his lack of determination and courage (again, I'm interpreting and paraphrasing) when it
comes to following through with the assassination plans.  In other words, his love is
worthless.  He's afraid to let his actions match his desires.  He's a
coward. 


When he protests that he is a man, she argues that
if he is a man now (when he's behaving cowardly) then what was he before when he raised
the idea of assassinating Duncan, a beast?  Powerfully, she proclaims that she has
breast fed an infant, but if she broke a promise as Macbeth wants to do, she would pluck
the child from her breast and dash the child's brains
out.


In short, she berates Macbeth, plays the "macho card,"
so to speak.  She questions his manhood and his
courage. 


And she manipulates him, as well.  Like actual
human beings do much of the time, she remembers what she wants to remember, or if not,
she rearranges the past to fit her purposes:  she refers to Macbeth's having "sworn" to
assassinate Duncan.  He actually does nothing of the kind.  His strongest verbal
commitment to the assassination plan is a "We will speak further" (Act 1.5.71).  She
manipulates reality or the remembered details in order to win the argument and get what
she wants.

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