English Literature help

Please can someone mark this essay and say what I can improve on, I'd really appreciate it because I've been stuck on a grade 7 for 3 years and have made literally no improvement, if anything my grade are just falling rather than improving.
The Question is Starting with this conversation, explore how Shakespeare presents the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/sample-papers-and-mark-schemes/2021/november/AQA-87022-QP-NOV21.PDF
Shakespeare portrays the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as one initially built on love, however as the play progressed the relationship becomes an output for Lady Macbeth’s appetite for power and ambition which she cannot achieve in a patriarchal society therefore she seeks power through her husband by Macbeth. By seeking power through her relationship with Macbeth, Lady Macbeth both conforms and subverts to the Jacobean standards imposed on women. This complex portrait of love, illustrating layers of love, ambition and manipulation is ultimately what leads to the Macbeth’s demise.

Macbeth’s relationship with Lady Macbeth consisting of loving and devotion is shown through his letter early on in the play towards his ‘Dearest partner of greatness’, the endearing term ‘Dearest partner’ indicates that Macbeth holds of great volume of love for his wife and values her highly however the fact that this letter was towards his wife shows that her opinion holds great significance to him which would’ve been unusual in the Jacobean times as they lived in a very patriarchal society, where the most important say in a relationship was that of a man’s as he was seen to be more rational. The use of the term ‘greatness’ to describe Lady Macbeth further supports the idea that Macbeth sees his wife as his equal and doesn’t view himself as a superior to her despite her gender. Perhaps Shakespeare intentionally establishes this equality seen in their relationship early on in the play to act as a warning to the audience of the unnatural nature of this relationship and the disruption it has not only on themselves, but also the order of society especially in the role of men and women. Because of this equality in their relationship, Lady Macbeth is enabled to utilise Macbeth in order to fulfil her ambition for power which she’s not currently able to do so because of her status and gender.

The manipulation seen in relationship first begins to arise before the death of King Duncan, Lady Macbeth encourages Macbeth to build an artificial façade in order to carry out his evil deeds undisturbed. Lady Macbeth commands Macbeth to ‘Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t’, through the noun ‘serpent’ Shakespeare makes a direct link to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve where Satan in the form of a ‘serpent’ encourages Eve to disobey God who in turn encourages Adam to follow her path and stray away from Christianity. Shakespeare uses this story to symbolise the status of their already unnatural relationship where Lady Macbeth is coercing her husband to commit regicide in order to gain power, even if it means they will be condemned by God. ‘Serpent’ also implies that Macbeth will now go on to commit even more treacherous acts, as like a ‘serpent’ he will release poison that will cause suffering amongst the innocent and will disrupt the great chain of being in the world thus bringing instability to the country through is unnatural reign. The command ‘Look’ highlights the power imbalance in their relationship, as Lady Macbeth is instructing her husband on what to do, by doing this, she both conform and subverts to the Jacobean stereotypes of women given that as a wife she is fulfilling her role of assisting her husband by assisting him in the deception of King Duncan however her dark intentions and authority behind this assistance contrasts the pure, weak, caring nature of a stereotypical Jacobean woman. Lady Macbeth both subverting and conforming to Jacobean standards shows that at heart she doesn’t know what’s best for herself therefore her being the head of the relationships will bring them instability. Shakespeare intentionally crafts this complex character of Lady Macbeth to convey the idea to the audience that women are not inherently evil and will still be submissive to their husband unconsciously because that is a woman’s role in a relationship, by stepping out of this role like Lady Macbeth they will face an impending, agonising fate as shown through Lady Macbeth’s suicide and psychological torture at the end of the play.

Not only does Lady Macbeth manipulate Macbeth to seek power, but she also emasculates him and patronises him in order to strip him of his human fears, guilt, and regret so that he can become ultimately become full of ‘direst cruelty’. After having Killed King Duncan Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth that the hallucinations he hears is ‘the eye of childhood, that fears a painted devil’. The word ‘painted’ indicates that Lady Macbeth believes that Macbeth’s fears are simply an illusion which he allows to haunt him and thus diminish his masculine power in her eyes, it also suggests that if he’s able to illustrate it he also has the power to irradicate this psychological torture as he was the one who created it in the first place. The metaphor of the ‘eye of the childhood’ further supports her dismissive approach to his terror as she compares him to a child who knows no better and is associated with weakness and vulnerability. Through this comparison, Lady Macbeth is suggesting that Macbeth is no longer the ferocious warrior he once was who ‘unseamed’ people he’s now simply reduced to a child with an imagination that haunts them. Perhaps these hallucinations of Macbeth murdering ‘innocent sleep’ could be a message from God as they appeared shortly after he murdered the appointed monarch, therefore Lady Macbeth dismissing God’s message shows to the audience the large extent to which she has strayed away from religion and therefore her morals as religion in Jacobean times were seen as the source of all of morality and goodness. By Shakespeare building this image of her in the audience’s mind, he encourages them to loath Lady Macbeth and by extension the characteristics she represents of being a strong, powerful woman in a relationship, this hatred pushed his audience to support his view of women in a traditional submissive role.

At the end of the play Macbeth’s love for Lady Macbeth appears to have diminished as when he’s told of the news of her death he states ‘she should of died in the hereafter’ the conditional verb ‘should’ suggests that Macbeth sees Lady Macbeth’s death as a mere inconvenience to his preparation for war and would’ve preferred her dying after his battle. It could also suggest that he wants her dead as he could be blaming her for the circumstance he is in now, if her manipulation didn’t act as a catalyst for his actions, he wouldn’t have ever committed regicide and go on to commit a series of crimes which has led to this battle, this insensitive response to her death could symbolise the death of their love and devotion to each other. However, this verb could also suggest the direct opposite, that Macbeth’s still loves his wife despite all the hardships they’re facing due to his actions fuelled by her manipulation. Perhaps Macbeth wanted Lady Macbeth to die after the Battle so that he could give have his own personal time to grieve his ‘partner of greatness’ but because of the circumstance he is in now his mind is fixated on fighting the battle rather than the death of his loved one. His love for Lady Macbeth is also further supported by the fact that he took time out of his day (right before the battle) to hire a physicians to check on her mental health, these actions seems to build the image of a loving husband in the audience’s mind who’s concerned about his wife’s deteriorating state, also Macbeth himself faced psychological torture where his mind was full of ‘scorpions’ so he would understand the suffering she went through on her last night of living.