How Is Lady Macbeth Characterised in Act 3, Scenes 2 and 4?

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How is Lady Macbeth characterised in Act 3, Scenes 2 and 4?

Lady Macbeth suffers a dramatic downfall in character throughout the play; initially she is able to manipulate Macbeth and pour her ‘spirits in thine ear’ however these central scenes can be viewed as the primary stages of her disintegration. Lady Macbeth’s dominant character has weakened and the couple have become more segregated and isolated through out these scenes. Macbeth begins to act single-handedly and Lady Macbeth begins to break down as she attempts to conceal their previous actions when Macbeth’s hallucinations of Banquo start to betray their crimes. The banquet scene is the final time that Lady Macbeth is in control: this is expressed by her verbal dominancy. She uses imperatives to be in command of the situation, her rank as Queen allows her to order the thanes to ‘keep seat’, Additionally, Lady Macbeth expresses her superiority in their relationship by answering ‘I pray you speak not’ for Macbeth to Ross. This use of dramatic irony between the audience and Ross, allows only us to detect desperation in her voice; we can see past Lady Macbeth’s false charade ‘my lord is often thus,/ and hath been from his youth’ and is only just silencing Macbeth’s confessional delusions. Shakespeare uses an aside with Macbeth, Lady Macbeth mocks and taunts him where she accuses him and questioning his masculinity, ‘are you a man?’ she confronts him, this is to coax him into concealing their crimes. The aside used Act 3, Scene 4 represents the contrast of Lady Macbeth’s dominance between their relationships and her minor place around the table in the Banquet scene. In their intimate relationship Lady Macbeth is his ‘dearest partner of greatness’ as an equal to Macbeth, however she is seen as an inferior woman and was not even seated around the table at the Banquet Scene ‘[Lady Macbeth joins

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