Lady Macbeth: On the Couch: Inside the Mind and Life of Lady MacbethAuthor: Alma H. Bond, Ph.D.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Bancroft Press
Release Date: April 15, 2014
Pages: 260
Source: This book was given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Synopsis: Scholars, professors, and historians have wondered for centuries how and why Lady Macbeth, the beautiful, beloved wife of a nobleman, had to encourage--nay, push--her husband, Prince Macbeth, to commit the ghastly crime of killing the king.
The great Sigmund Freud himself said that nobody knows why the Lady did so. Dr. Alma Bond spent many years searching for the reason.
Read Lady Macbeth: On the Couch to learn the answer to this ancient mystery, and to get a fascinating, first-hand look at life more than a millennium ago.
My Review: Macbeth is one of my favorite Shakespearean plays. Yet, the character that intrigues me the most in the play is not Macbeth, but his wife Lady Macbeth. She is the woman who pushed her husband to commit the ghastly crime of regicide. This is because she too is driven by a desire of ambition and greed to become Scotland’s queen. However, like Macbeth, she too has her own tragedy. In Lady Macbeth: On the Couch, Lady Macbeth’s tragedy is once again retold as she tells us her story of what led her to push her husband to commit the horrendous deed of murdering King Duncan in his sleep.
While the book is a retelling of the Shakespearean play, the book’s early beginnings focuses on the historical Lady Macbeth. The first part of the book parallels Susan Fraser King’s novel, Lady Macbeth, which she cites in her bibliography. After the second part, she then transforms Gruoch into Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. The historical and the Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeths are very different, yet the author blends them both very smoothly.
Gruoch is a woman of royal blood and a descendant of kings. In medieval Scotland, the throne did not pass from father to son. Instead, a council of noblemen chose the person best fit to be the king of Scotland. With Grouch's royal blood, any man that marries her will help in his bid for king. Therefore, Gruoch does not have any life. There have been attempts at kidnapping her. She realizes that she is merely regarded as chattel, and that she cannot control her own life. Yet, when she becomes Macbeth’s wife, she comes upon an opportunity to where she has her own power, her own sense of authority, and that she can be an equal among men. But as she suddenly obtains her own power, she realizes that she will lose everything she cherishes and loves.
Overall, this book examines the moral conscience. This book is filled with love, revenge, and betrayal. It is a tragedy because the Macbeths were not grateful with what they had. They were blinded by ambition, and it turned out that the throne of Scotland wasn’t worth it. The message of the book is to appreciate what you have. It teaches that you should value family over money and power. I recommend this book to anyone who is a Shakespeare fan and likes reading his plays. I also recommend this to those currently studying Macbeth. Lady Macbeth: On the Couch will help understand the play and to see it in a different light.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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