Compare Measure For Measure And Macbeth

Both Measure for Measure and Macbeth were written in a social system where males held primary power and prevailed in roles of political leadership, moral authority and social privilege. The institutions of male domination entails female subordination.Women were regarded as subservient to men and were restricted from real opinions and formal education. Their expected role was to be domesticated and provide children. Consequently husbands and fathers held authority and possession over wives and daughters. Both plays include taboo lexis and themes exploring the limits of female characters.

Subversively, Shakespeare included strong female characters in his plays, exemplified by Lady Macbeth. When we first encounter her she is portrayed as more

As she drives her husband toward committing regicide, she demonstrates she must adopt masculine characteristics. Lady Macbeth seeks to permanently alter her physiological being in pursuit of a masculine presence capable of masculine acts. As Dr.Johnson said “The arguments by which Lay Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the murder afford a proof of Shakespeare’s knowledge of human nature. She urges the excellence and dignity and courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age…Courage is the distinguishing virtue of a soldier and the reproach of cowardice cannot be borne by any man from a woman without great impatience” She must contend with the role given to her by society, in order for Lady Macbeth to carry out her plans, she feels she must pray to no longer be a woman "unsex me here." As her monologue unfolds the intensity of asking, almost begging, to be stripped of feminine weakness and establish masculine resolve is depicted. However it can also be interpreted that she requests to be genderless and not to have to tolerate the limitations of either gender. The Royal Shakespeare Company suggests that “Lady Macbeths desire to be unsexed as well as the pattern of her behaviour throughout the play