In the 11th century, during Macbeth’s reign, there were great differences in how people saw gender roles. There was no women's right movements or female activists. While today’s women have made huge advances in achieving equality, in the 11th century, women were considered inferior to men in certain areas. Men were considered to be strong, and held the powerful and authoritative role in their families, businesses, armies, and in government, while women held less-powerful roles and were taught to obey their husbands. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth there is a swapping of gender roles. In the play, Macbeth possesses the traits of cowardness, and gullibility, which were traditionally attributed to woman, while the female character Lady Macbeth possesses …show more content…
Usually women are seen as less influential compared to males, and are usually seen as the non-dominant member of the family. However in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the dominant member of the family. Lady Macbeth shows how dominant and influential she is when she forces Macbeth into killing King Duncan. At first Macbeth was very hesitant about killing Duncan. Even though Macbeth wanted to kill Duncan to become king, he was still uneasy about that idea due to his close relationship with the king as both a friend and a cousin. However, Lady Macbeth was power hungry to be queen, so she wanted Macbeth to kill Duncan in order to satisfy her wish. In an effort to change Macbeth’s mind, Lady Macbeth calls Macbeth, “a coward in thine own esteem (41, 47),” because Macbeth supposedly wants to kill Duncan, but he says he can’t do it, making him a man who is afraid to commit murder. Lady Macbeth also insults Macbeth by stating, “when you durst do it, then you were a man (43, 56)”. In this quote, Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth’s manliness by saying that he will never be a true man unless he kills. The talk given by Lady Macbeth finally convinces Macbeth to kill Duncan. If it wasn’t for Lady Macbeth’s intervention, Macbeth most likely would have not killed Duncan, but Lady Macbeth influenced Macbeth to kill. This proves that in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the dominant …show more content…
Gullibility is a womanly trait, because back in the 11th century, women were less educated and therefore perceived as less intelligent than men. The stereotype of women being less educated than men extends to the point that due to the lack of education, women will believe falsities and therefore be easily deceived. The gullibility gender role of women even goes all the way back to when the first ever woman, Eve, was deceived by Satan into sinning by eating forbidden fruit, laying the foundation for this stereotype. Macbeth shows that he is gullible when he succumbs to the prophecies of the witches. When Macbeth visits the witches for a second time, the witches tells him the prophecy: “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth (125, 91-92).” Little did Macbeth know, the witches were evil beings who told this prophecy to lure Macbeth into a false sense of security. This was a half-truth that Macbeth interpreted incorrectly. Macbeth interpreted the woman born prophecy thinking that because everyone is born out of a woman, nobody will be able to harm him since everyone is woman born, making him invincible. However, Macbeth’s interpretation is flawed because a person can be born out of a Cesarean section, a birth that is not out of a woman, such as Macduff, who ends up killing a Macbeth when he thought he was safe from mankind. This shows that Macbeth is gullible, because he allows himself to be deceived by the obviously malicious
Well Lady Macbeth, who is dead set on having absolute power, disagrees with that. She convinces Macbeth to kill, to cover up the murders, and tries to convince him that these murders will get them to the top. Lady Macbeth calls upon the witches and states, “unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty” (Macbeth Act 1 Scene 5 lines 31 and 31). This shows that while in the pursuit of power, Lady Macbeth wanted it so much that she asked the witches to “unsex” her and make her more like man. But along with that you see the theme of gender roles are uncertain which ties into Lady Macbeth leading Macbeth in this pursuit of power, also giving him the ambition that she wants him to
This study will focus on the way in which Shakespeare crafts his play and uses dramatic devices in his portrayal of Lady Macbeth in order to confront the gender stereotypes of the time, femininity and the natural order of society. During the early 17th century there was a substantial fear that if women were liberated from their domestic, maternal roles, the historically patriarchal society would unravel. With prevailing challenges of gender such as “When you durst do it, then you were a man” Shakespeare uses the character of Lady Macbeth to transgress the natural limits concomitant with her sex. In order to be able to answer the research question, it is vital to concretely establish the contemporary gender roles and the context of the play.
Lady Macbeth does not submit to her husband, which is one of the main roles of an Elizabethan woman. She has not borne any children, and if she did, she did not try as much as a typical Elizabethan woman. Lady Macbeth also tries to deceive others. She calls on evil spirits, she should be more of a religious woman if she was following the stereotype.
Lady Macbeth’s power-hungry attitude, lack of children, and manipulative ways make her a complete opposite to the more traditional woman who Lady Macduff represents, being innocent, motherly, and at times, powerless. Shakespeare created these differences to bring light to the themes of his play and to add depth to this story of war and
Men want to be known for being strong and protective. During Act 3 Lady Macbeth questions her husband's manhood and calls him a coward, Lady MacBeth said “ ... Feed and regret him not,- are you a man?” (III.IV.72). Lady Macbeth says that to her husband because she wanted to push him to do dirty work that she planned out in her head.
In William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Macbeth, the use of figurative language and the contrast of light and dark in respects to Lady Macbeth’s assassination plot illustrates her defying the set social structure of gender. In the play, Lady Macbeth favors attaining more power, thus prompting her to formulate a plan to kill Duncan, the King, so that her and Macbeth could claim the noble title. The situation correlates to gender as Lady Macbeth epitomizes an unconventional stereotype because devising this type of scheme fits the matrix of males not females. But, regardless of gender, she acknowledges this plan as one of “nature’s mischief” (i.v.48) meaning that it reflects the intrinsic evil within a person, therefore, her words show that
The women in Macbeth are presented by Shakespeare to be powerful and ambitious which was unlike the typical views during Jacobean times. The playwright portrays Lady Macbeth and the witches to be highly influential to male characters in the play, which again contrasts the contemporary views to that time. Their ambition and power are demonstrated through the perversion of nature. This highlights the evil and immoral side, they possess. Shakespeare, however, presented Lady Macbeth and the witches to be manipulative and cunning, rather than violent like Macbeth was during the play.
Lady Macbeth’s persona in the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare is unlike any other conventional female character from the Elizabethan times. A conventional female character portrayed in Shakespeare’s many literary works is characterized as obedient, submissive, unpowerful, and extremely affectionate and warm-hearted. On the contrary, Lady Macbeth exhibits quite a few sinister and strikingly odd characteristics despite her role as a female character in a Shakespeare play. For example, after Lady Macbeth finds out that Duncan and Macbeth are coming over, she speaks to spirits and says, “Come, you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me
The Tragedy of Macbeth presents a story in which influence begins to have it’s consequences. Throughout the play, various characters are introduced and not all appear to be who we think they are. It is not rare to see how women play major roles in a man’s decision making nowadays. Often times, women can manipulate the mentality of a man in order to enjoy the littlest of glory. The brutal events that occur within the play are as a result to the way Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband, Macbeth.
In Macbeth, Shakespeare didn 't like using the traditional gender roles. He constantly ignores these roles by creating dominant and male-like women characters, this illustrates Shakespeare’s feelings about society’s typical dictation of the natural order of the world. Macbeth is a play in which nothing is as it seems, gender and sexuality are the main things that follow this rule. Darkness is spread through every part of the play as blind ambition obscures the minds of its primary characters. But at the root of it all is the relationship between Macbeth and his Lady, whose lack of knowledge and faith in themselves drives them toward insanity and a horrific fate.
Women are never shown as strong dominant characters, whether it be in the past or modern day. Previously, women were owned by their husbands and told how to and what to do in their lives. Today, women are no longer owned but still seen as objects, over-sexualized and objectified. Propitiously, Lady Macbeth was not portrayed like this at all, nor was she depicted as most women in plays. Women in plays are usually displayed as weak, vulnerable character with little to no sense.
Judith Butler once said, “Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed, but socially constructed.” In the novel Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth do not conform to the gender roles society has created, but follow the roles that they have mentally. Lady Macbeth takes on the stereotypical male gender roles while her husband is taking on roles that could be seen as traditional female roles. Shakespeare reverses the stereotypical gender roles to challenge the traditional gender roles of power, masculinity, and leadership. First of all, Shakespeare changes the stereotypical gender role of power through Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
In his play, Shakespeare portrays Lady Macbeth as a strong, powerful woman who resists the normal gender roles. In one case, she talked to spirits when contemplating the murder of King Duncan. While doing so, she urged, “Come, you evil spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here…” (1.5.41-42). Markedly, Lady Macbeth is shown here in this dark scene, asking to be less like a woman; therefore, defying gender roles because
Celia Beyers Tinti Period 1/5 12 April 2015 Literary Analysis: Macbeth In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, he presents the character of Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is shown, as a character that schemes into making rebellious plots. She reveals the desire for wanting to lose her feminine qualities in order to be able to gain more masculine ones.
Feminism, a topic prominent today but not so well-known in the not-so distant past where in the past, women were treated merely as sexual objects rather than people. However, this changed over time, albeit very slowly. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth set in the 11th century in Scotland, Macbeth is a ruthless warrior whose immense prowess earns him considerable respect from the king. One day while traversing through a rather peculiar area with Banquo, Macbeth’s friend and renown warrior, they encounter three witches that tell them a prophecy of which they cannot ignore.