How Does Shakespeare Present Power In Macbeth

Shakespeare presents the relationship of the characters, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, using powerful emotions portrayed by Lady Macbeth towards Macbeth in the form of love, fear, and anger to conflict Macbeth and his indecisiveness towards killing the Duncan. Shakespeare did this to show the power and dominance of Lady Macbeth, which is deployed to shock and interest the audience to see a role reversal of power, which at the time, was a time of major male dominance.
Lady Macbeth displays to the audience during Act 1, Scene 7, her ability to quickly manipulate the thoughts of the character Macbeth in her favour by using a test of Macbeth's emotions of love towards her, she uses his indecisiveness to contrast to his love to her, and by doing so Shakespeare portrays that Macbeth has immediately been grasped into the fear of losing his wife, or losing her faith. Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth and her dominance through stating …show more content…
This is done by the character Lady Macbeth through the powerful use of the line “live a coward in thine own esteem” towards Macbeth. Lady Macbeth uses this line, in the knowledge she is insulting Macbeth's masculinity, and in doing so producing a powerful and overwhelming feeling of anger. Lady Macbeth portrays to the audience how she uses this anger in Macbeth to cloud his own thoughts and conflict them with her own, manipulative thoughts to prove himself and his masculinity to his wife. Shakespeare uses this to show how easily conflicted Macbeth is, and to continue putting a sense of shock into the audience. The audience is easily excited by the atmosphere created by this scene, as this was acted out during a time where a man's masculinity was extremely important, for it to be doubted (by a woman) gives the audience something to relate this anger too, and by doing so want to watch on and see how such an insult upon such a figure (Macbeth) plays