The Roles of Women in Macbeth Women in the Elizabethan era were subservient to men. They were expected to conform to the societies expectations while obeying the significant male figures in their lives. High-born women were often portrayed “possessions” to be shared between fathers and husbands. In several cases, they were socially restricted and unable to explore the world around them without chaperones. The women were mainly expected to act as loving caretakers to those in their families. In William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, however, the female figures in the play both promote the idea of unbridled feminine sexuality but also promote the female ideals of being loving caretakers. The dramatic technique Shakespeare uses to characterize his female figure in the play are the setting, the character’s dialogue and what the other characters say about them, especially behind their backs. The three main female characters that endorse but also contradict the archetypes of women are the tyrannical Lady Macbeth, the loving Lady Macduff and lastly the mysterious weird sisters. Lady Macbeth is portrayed as a virago and a heartless fiend with an savage disregard for life. When she is first introduced into the play, she is already planning on using violence to create her husbands uprising to becoming King of Scotland. She has strong willed personality, more ambitious and more ruthless then her husband. As a result of her understanding of the power she has over her husband, she is able to manipulate him with great effectiveness. She is able to override his objectives to not kill the king and when he becomes hesitant about the murder, she questions his manhood until he feels that the murder is the only way he can prove himself. Her hus... ... middle of paper ... ...otland. Critics see the witches and the question of their gender as a device Shakespeare uses to criticize the male-dominated culture (Jamieson,1). The witches ultimately promote Macbeth’s violent ambitious and challenge the control he over his humanity. The witches are seen as the fuel to Macbeth's desires, in terms of their supernatural influence. However, perhaps it is Macbeth that stimulates the witches; although the witches suggest a possible future for Macbeth, it could be seen that Macbeth utilises the witches words, to the point where he truly believes that he is invincible “None of woman born shall harm Macbeth”. This sense of invincibility is also shown near the end of the play when Macbeth states "put mine armour on, give me my staff", which ultimately shows that Macbeth believes that he is all powerful and has the assets of all elements within him.
Women have always been the backbone of human civilization, whether it be in ancient times or even in the modern era. However, they are oppressed and not given the same fundamental, human rights as men, like access to education, leaving this discrimination and sexism to span over prolonged periods of time. Specifically, sexism is seen during the Elizabethan Era of history when William Shakespeare writes his prominent dramatic piece, Macbeth. In Shakespeare’s tragedy, the prevalent theme of sexism is depicted in the play when Lady Macbeth, a character of strength and ambition, is shown as manipulative and inevitably weak when Shakespeare portrays her eventual downfall and suicide. Throughout the world today, the many different forms of sexism
Lady Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare’s most famous and frightening female characters. As she is Macbeth’s wife, her role is significant in his rise and fall from royalty. She is Macbeth’s other half. During Shakespearean times, women were regarded as weak insignificant beings that were there to give birth and look beautiful. They were not thought to be as intelligent or equal to men. Though in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the highest influence in Macbeth’s life. Her role was so large; in fact, that she uses her position to gain power, stay strong enough to support her unstable Lord, and fails miserably while their relationship falls apart. Everything about Lady Macbeth is enough to create the perfect villain because of her ability to manipulate everyone around her. It appears that even she can’t resist the perfect crime.
Gender roles are one of the most controversial topics in the history of humanity. Some people approve of them, while others disagree with them. Gender roles are defined as “the behavior learned by a person as appropriate to their gender, determined by the prevailing cultural norms”. There are times throughout history where gender roles were very unfair. However, some individuals still defied them in both open and discreet ways. One of these individuals was the famous literary figure, William Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare may have defied gender roles in some of his other literary works, the scope of this essay will be limited to his stellar play, Macbeth. In Macbeth, Shakespeare mostly uses three characters to defy gender roles: The Three
In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, the characterization of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, through the motif of gender roles, provides an understanding of the pivotal stereotypical roles that should be blended. In the Elizabethan era, there was no flexibility to gender preferences; people of this time were less forgiving. The dynamic of the relationship is altered due to the juxtaposition of the balance of power between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth causing the play to progress into a tragedy.
After Macbeth discovers the Witches’ prophecy, he tells his wife, Lady Macbeth, about it. She reacts differently than one would expect a woman to do. She begins to mock Macbeth and ridicule his masculinity. By the conveyance of her speech, Lady Macbeth emphasizes that she is in charge and that Macbeth needs to follow her in order to achieve anything, as she states, “Yet do I fear thy nature;/ It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness/To catch nearest way” (1.5.16-18). Shakespeare employs the rhetorical device of a metaphor to describe Lady Macbeth’s view on Macbeth’s personality.
The main theme of Macbeth-the destruction wrought when ambition goes unchecked by moral constraints-finds its most powerful expression in the play's two main characters. Macbeth is a courageous Scottish general who is not naturally inclined to commit evil deeds, yet he deeply desires power and advancement. He kills Duncan against his better judgment and afterward stews in guilt and paranoia. Toward the end of the play he descends into a kind of frantic, boastful madness. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, pursues her goals with greater determination, yet she is less capable of withstanding the repercussions of her immoral acts. One of Shakespeare's most forcefully drawn female characters, she spurs her husband mercilessly to kill Duncan and urges him to be strong in the murder's aftermath, but she is eventually driven to distraction by the effect of Macbeth's repeated bloodshed on her conscience. In each case, ambition helped, of course, by the malign prophecies of the witches is what drives the couple to ever more terrible atrocities. The problem, the play suggests, is that once one decides to use violence to further one?s quest for power, it is difficult to stop. There are always potential threats to the throne?Banquo, Fleance, Macduff?and it is always tempting to use violent means to dispose of them.
Cawdor' because of his courageous fighting. Macbeth still continued to fight with evil ambitions that
Lady Macbeth is a very loving wife to Macbeth and she wants to do anything she can for him to achieve his goals. She just takes it a little too far, and she puts too much pressure on Macbeth to commit crimes that he is not sure he wants to do. After Macbeth sends her a letter about the witches’ premonitions, Lady Macbeth is no longer the sweet innocent lady we expect her to be. She turns into a person who is just as ambitious as her husband and she wants to do whatever it takes to help him get Duncan out of the way. She even goes to the point of calling Macbeth a coward, and mocking his bravery when he fails to complete the job. She is even willing to do it herself (plant the bloody knife with the guard). Lady Macbeth is constantly putting the pressure on Macbeth to do things that he is not sure about. She almost turns into a bully who dares Macbeth to go out and do evil things. She even says in a soliloquy that she wants to be released of all her morals and values so that she can help him commit these crimes.
Shakespeare makes his audience question traditional gender roles in Macbeth by Lady Macbeth’s character taking on the more dominate manly role in the marriage while Macbeth’s character is portrayed as submissive, therefore portraying the womanly role. Hence, even from the beginning of the play, the Macbeths’ characters reflected the inverse of the societal constructions of gender roles. As the play proceeds, however, in order to keep the balance that Shakespeare strived for in his work, the roles of these characters reversed.
The Elizabethan era was a time that had very strict expectations of what it means to be a man or a woman. However, these expectations are not followed in Macbeth. In Macbeth, Shakespeare investigates and challenges the common gender roles of the time. Through defying the natural gender roles, he shows how people can accomplish their goals. He challenges the stereotypical Elizabethan woman through Lady Macbeth and the Weïrd Sisters, and he investigates how the stereotypes for men are used for manipulation.
Gender Issues in William Shakespeare's Macbeth In Macbeth there are some issues that show us that at the time William Shakespeare wrote, women were treated in a much inferior way than men. "For brave Macbeth- well he deserves that name- disdaining fortune, with his brandish steel, which smoked bloody execution" (I.2.16) This quote proves that men are seen as more important than women. It's taken from the start of the play, said by the captain at the battle.
Judith Butler’s concept of gender performativity suggests that there is a distinction between “sex, as a biological facticity, and gender, as the cultural interpretation or signification of that facticity” (Butler, 522). Performing certain actions that society associates with a specific gender marks you as that gender. In this way, gender is socially constructed. Alfar defines the societal expectation of women as the “constant and unquestioning feminine compliance with the desires of the masculine” (114). Considering Macbeth from a modern perspective and taking this distinction into account, it is necessary to determine if the play is concerned with sex or with gender. Before the action of the play even begins, the audience is warned that “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (1.1.11). The first scene of the play casts the world of Macbeth as a land where everything is opposite or disordered. This line at the very start of the play cautions audiences to not take the play at face value because things are not always as they appear to be. Because of this, “all the binaries become complicated, divisions blurred. Thus the binary nature of gender identities, male/female, is eliminated” (Reaves 14). In the world of Macbeth, the typical gender constructions are manipulated and atypical. If the play does not deal with sex, the qualities of Lady Macbeth cannot be applied to all women but rather, representative of society’s construction of gender, “the patriarch, and the limited, restrictive roles of women” (Reaves 11). Within this reading of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s examination and questioning of gender construction allows modern day readers to recognize the enduring relevance of
Gender is evidently out of its traditional order within the play, and thus the three chosen exemplar characters to showcase this are Lady Macbeth, the Witches, and Macbeth. In saying this, Lady Macbeth is a clear example of how the traditional characteristics of a woman are non-existent as they are taken over by masculinity and strength. The witches challenge their womanhood due to the power they hold and attributes they have, all while Macbeth challenges his gender as he shows femininity through weakness and fretfulness.
Although the women in Shakespeare’s time where not given the opportunity for their voices to be heard, Shakespeare gave them a voice through the production of his plays. In both A Midsummer Night’s Dream and King Lear, Shakespeare highlights the ways in which male superiority impedes with the lives of females, he also queries and mocks the accepted patterns of prescribed feminine and masculine behaviors. “While female characters such as Regan and Goneril take on masculine characteristics and King Lear takes on feminine characteristics, Shakespeare demonstrates that men and women are forever searching for a balance between their gender roles, and that this can sometimes be corrupted by power” (Ink).
Macbeth is a famous play written by Shakespeare. This play like most stories had women in it, and whether Shakespeare intended to or not he showed his own views on women. The women in this play are the witches and the two wives. Witches aside the two wives are quite unique before settling in to the stereotype of playing second fiddle to a male character. “They wanted, it seemed, to be supporting actresses in their own stories”. (Kelsey McKinney) These women take the time to make it clear how awful they are before fading out. Both the wives and the witches do this masterfully before succumbing to the stereotype of fading out to a male character. In Macbeth the three main feminine themes are clearly that women should not be trusted, have little faith in others, and make foolish decisions.