Macbeth’s letter. Connotative analysis.

Macbeth’s letter gives information on Macbeth’s personality and the relation between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth’s ambition is clear to the reader when he says “I burned in desire to question them further” (“burned” underlines the great intensity of his desire). The disappearance of the witches places a limitation to Macbeth’s knowledge but at the same time makes him think about his future (“I stood rapt in the wonder of it”) and desire to accomplish what the witches forecast. But the most important aspect that emerges is the relation between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the last part of the letter. The reader can understand that Lady Macbeth has a key position in his husband’s life and in the tragedy. Macbeth refers to her as “my dearest partner in greatness” (the superlative underlines the important position of Lady Macbeth in his husband's life) and it seems he is more interested in accomplishing her rather than having a personal satisfaction (“that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee”, her importance is confirmed by the repetition and the use of “you” as the subject).

But the last part of the letter can be understood another way. Macbeth may be trying to temp her wife to help him reaching the power since he may be aware of his loyalty to the king and the impossibility for him to kill the king alone. This way he would get Lady Macbeth's help without her additional claims. So Macbeth tries to tempt (maybe unconsciously) his wife making promises on her future greatness, this is also underlined by the use of the superlative "dearest" and the massive repetition of the sound -s ("dearest", "greatness", mightst", "lose", "dues", "rejoicing", "is" and "promised") that reminds the reader of the hiss of the Snake that tempted Adam and Eve. According to this theory, Macbeth's attempts result successful as it is confirmed by the following thoughts of Lady Macbeth who starts thinking how to help Macbeth in reaching power and by the symmetrical construction of the text since in the letter Macbeth tries to temp Lady Macbeth but in the following text Lady Macbeth says she will do it ("That I may pour my spirits in thine ear", it reminds of Eve or of the Snake like Macbeth's letter).

The thoughts of Lady Macbeth are characterized by the use of the conditional mood that gives the text a sense of insecurity. This is confirmed by the words "metaphysical aid" and "fate" at the end of the text since they do not concern human nature and so they are not under control of human being (the reader can also understand how the tragedy will end). The thoughts of Lady Macbeth convey the inner clash described between Macbeth's loyalty and ambition: each phrase is followed by an opposite one (one refers to his ambition while the other refers to his loyalty) creating a kind of antithesis that gives balance to the text (the same balance that exists in Macbeth between loyalty and ambition, so Lady Macbeth has to help him make ambition surmount loyalty).