Macbeth And Witches

4 Pages 940 Words

Q2- What does the audience learn about Macbeth and his lady as a consequence of her reading of macbeths letter and her first soliloquy? How does the languade of the letter and the soliloquy lead to that understanding?

As the scene opens, Lady Macbeth is reading a letter from her husband. The letter tells of the witches' prophecy for him, which is treated as a certainty, because "I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge" (1.5.1-3).
"The perfectest report" means the most reliable information, so it appears that Macbeth has been asking people what they know about the reliability of witches. If that's the case, he has ignored the advice of Banquo, who is quite sure that witches can't be trusted. But Macbeth seems to trust the witches absolutely, because he is writing to his wife, his "dearest partner of greatness," so that she "mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing" (1.5.11-12). That is, he believes that she has a right to rejoice because she will be a queen. However, Lady Macbeth doesn't rejoice. She is determined that he will be king, but she suspects that he doesn't have the right stuff to do what needs to be done. Speaking to him as though he were really there, she says: "Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o' the milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way" (1.5.16-18).
Her reaction to the letter shows that Lady Macbeth is a woman who knows her husband very well, perhaps because she shares some of his instincts. For both of them, murder is the "nearest way." In an earlier scene, Macbeth had commented that "If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, / Without my stir" (1.3.143-144), but later he assumes that he must be an assassin in order to be king. And this is always his wife's assumption.
In addition, Lady Macbeth seems to share the witches' views on good and bad. She says to her absent husband, "Thou wouldst be great; / Art not without ambition, but wit...