Shakespeare in this scene presents Lady Macbeth as a responsible calm leader. He has done this to embed his theme of power. This theme is important to the play because it would keep the audience at unease as they watch this characters have to make irrational quick decisions. One way in which Shakespeare has done this is in the use of line duration and iambic pentameter.

Firstly, lady Macbeth and macbeth share lines. For example between lines 30-37 or specifically ‘chief nourisher in life’s feast-What do you mean?’, lady Macbeth steals the rhythm from Macbeth’s speech. This could be interpretared in more than one way. Firstly, Macbeth is a man that cannot finish his own sentences, keep to the iambic pentameter or even speak his own thoughts. Thus making the audience believe that Macbeth is a weak, ill-hearted, suppressed man. I have used the word ill-hearted in this context because it is said that a man that cannot speak on his heart beat (the iambic pentameter) is a weak and ill-hearted or doesn’t not speak the truth. This in turn making lady Macbeth have the opposite qualities; powerful, well-hearted and a leader. Or secondly, lady Macbeth is scared and worried, this is why she is taking Macbeth’s lines, however this interpretation is weak as in lines 30-31 ‘ These deeds must not be thought….it will make us mad’, lady Macbeth is directly calming Macbeth down. This strengthens my first interpretation of lady Macbeth being a powerful leader as leaders controls their armies. Lady Macbeth has done by taking Macbeth’s lines, righting his wrongs and in turn controlling his thoughts and emotions.

Building on this point, Macbeth flaws I.e him panicking has allowed lady Macbeth to show a sense of leadership. This shown by how much each character says. Between lines 20 to 40, Macbeth speaks 16 lines compared to lady.s Macbeth’s 4. This construct our understanding of Macbeth as a scarier worried man. This has happened because when a prison is scared they try to assess the situation at hand with logical thoughts, however because of his relationship with lady Macbeth, Macbeth does not think for himself so instead he blurts out all his thoughts hoping for his wife to make sense of it. This passage concludes Macbeth’s and lady Macbeth’s relationship status ad their characters. This is because Shakespeare has secured the irony in the relationship as the woman as the dominant figure. This ironic because back in the 16th century woman did not have any rights and were thought of as the irrelevant sex. In turn the audience would think that lady Macbeth is not just a woman but a leader.

In conclusion, Shakespeare has used varied line duration and the iambic pentameter to construct our understanding of lady Macbeth being a powerful, calm leader. Shakespeare has done this to create irony and entertain his audience as well as embed his theme of power.