Macbeth Feminist Analysis

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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.

Although the results are not seen until the end of the play it is foreshadowed quite heavily throughout that the women are not to be trusted. The first example is the witches. The play’s opening act is the three witches foreshadowing their evil plan as one witch asks whether they will meet again assuming it will be in thunder, lightning, or in rain. During the time period of this play it was widely believed that a person’s actions could affect the weather. Bad deeds would result in bad …show more content…

These women are just terrible between Lady Macduff’s lying, Lady Macbeths terrible decisions, and just about anything involving the witches. I don’t know if Shakespeare had some past trauma with women, or if he simply did not like them. Either way Shakespeare hits a rare margin. “Statistically, one percent of the Best Novels are about women doing something other than loving.” (McKinney, Kelsey). The women of this play manage to land in this one percent due to their lack of love, and in doing some rare themes in place for feminism in

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