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the role of gender in Macbeth
how lady macbeth manipulates macbeth
how lady macbeth manipulates macbeth
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Recommended: the role of gender in Macbeth
Women are mysterious creatures when it comes down to understanding why they do the stuff they do. This portrays in real life as well as in the book multiple times. In the novel Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, women appear to have a strong influence on what the men in the novel do. They are deceitful and manipulative just like in real life. The most devious women in the novel Macbeth were The Witches and Lady Macbeth. In this novel Lady Macbeth played a huge role in the fate of her husband, Macbeth. She was basically the reason he was because of her deceiving words and trickery. Lady Macbeth states, “From this time Such I account thy love. Art thou afeared to be the same in thine own act and valor As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
In the old Shakespeare play Macbeth, women wear the pants, while the men wear the dresses, this is the theme throughout the play. It focuses on the marriage of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth takes the lead role, while she convinces her husband to kill Duncan. Shakespeare play concerning gender roles, shows the untraditional marriage in Scotland; what one sees is not what one gets. It also show how one starts is not how they end. The story of Macbeth shows power and betrayal. It shows power because it shows how one can take charge and get it done. It shows betrayal because he kill Duncan just to get the crown.
Lady Macbeth was a small but very important part of the play Macbeth. She is always on the side of Macbeth telling him what she thinks he should do. When Macbeth was off at war, and told lady Macbeth that the witches greeted him as Thane of Cawdor, and King of Scotland before he received those titles, she was probably scheming no how to fulfill those before he returned home. Once home, they had King Duncan stay at Dunsinane. Lady Macbeth then b-tches at her husband and ridicules his masculinity in order to make him commit murder (Friedlander). Macbeth reluctantly murders Duncan, even though he wanted to wait and have it all play out without killing anyone. When he went to the well to wash off his hands he speaks of his remorse, and lady Macbeth finds out that he did not implicate the guards, so she tells him to go do it. But he wont, so she insults him more, and goes to do it herself.
Although written long ago, Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth still has themes relevant for contemporary society. Murderous ambition, political intrigue, crafty social alliances, the disintegration of marriage – these could be headlines from any daily news program. It comes as no surprise, then, that we also find a significant number of moments in the play where gender seems to be an issue. More specifically, we might say that Shakespeare's dramatic investigation into proper uses of power consists, in part, of a rigorous critique of the disparities between the respective roles assigned to men and women. Shakespeare seems especially interested in the moral and ethical implications of such discrepancies. In the interest of space and time, I will focus here on only a few brief moments from act one. However, I encourage you to note the further development of these points as the drama unfolds in subsequent scenes.
Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth is well known to be a strong, independent character. She proved her strength multiple times throughout the play. But, since she is a woman, her character has a certain weakness which is recognized by the other characters in the play, and especially herself. Given this limitation, many people perceive her to be simply a women with a lot of potential that never truly is able to flourish. On the contrary, she is a key part in the play. Without her, many of the events of the story wouldn’t have taken place. Given her gender, many people won’t be able to realize how large of an influence Lady Macbeth had over Macbeth and the other characters. Lady Macbeth was the “man” in her relationship, showing the strength
Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare dramatically shows what can happen when our common gender roles are broken. He shows the power that people can have over others when they aren’t acting the way they’re expected to.
We start to see Lady Macbeth’s actions have a huge impact on Macbeth’s character as he transforms from a decent being to an overly bitter creature. The cause of his alteration is due to the fact that Lady Macbeth is constantly excreting heartless information into his mind. "Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire?" (I;vii;39-41) "And, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man." (I;vii;50-51) Lady Macbeth uses these quotes to push her husband beyond limits and is therefore responsible for his dramatic change in attitude. She is constantly feeding his thoughts with negative comments and later on Macbeth realizes that he has another side to him. As he moves along to discover the concealed side of him, Macbeth falls in love with himself and begins to be drawn towards his evil desires. Because Lady Macbeth was the main cause of his new hidden discovery, she is fully responsible for opening up the door and letting the darkness in. This results in Macbeth committing both murders.
Throughout history women have fought for the same rights of men. In the time of William Shakespeare they were seen in society as weak and vulnerable. They were seen to be good, caring and not as powerful as men. Men were the superior and ruled the land. Shakespeare has taken the stereotypical image of the women of the time and turned it on its head in ‘Macbeth’. Lady Macbeth is shown as a very powerful, strong woman. She has an evil about her that Shakespeare has used to make ‘Macbeth’ a supernatural play. Women were seen to be good and not as powerful as men, in ‘Macbeth’ Lady Macbeth is the dominate character and commands and persuades Macbeth to commit the murders and crimes that he does.
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.
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.
While not the only contributing factor, Lady Macbeth does play a substantial role in the downfall of her husband. She is a like a catalyst for Macbeth and essentially pushes him to do what he would not have been able to do on his own. Macbeth himself highly ambitious and determined, but his wife is even more so. At first he refuses to kill Duncan but she persists and eventually gets him to do it. It is important to note here that Lady Macbeth pushes Macbeth forward by manipulating him. In this sense, she can be related to Cathy Ames from East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Also, being a woman, she is confined by the conventions of society which prevent her from doing much. At what point she even wishes that she were 'unsexed' so she could commit the murder herself. Because of this, she pours her ambition and desire for power into Macbeth. Again she accomplishes this through manipulation. For example, at one point when Macbeth is disagreeing with her idea of killing Duncan, she questions his manhood:
Macbeth rejects conformation to traditional gender roles in its portrayal of Lady Macbeth’s relationship with her husband, her morals and their effect on her actions, and her hunger for power. Her regard for Macbeth is one of low respect and beratement, an uncommon and most likely socially unacceptable attitude for a wife to have towards her spouse at the time. She often ignores morality and acts for the benefit of her husband, and subsequently herself. She is also very power-hungry and lets nothing stand in the way of her success. Lady Macbeth was a character which challenged expectations of women and feminism when it was written in the seventeenth century.
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.
In the play, Macbeth, women play a very powerful role. They can either support good decisions or add to harmful situations. The Three Witches are great characters in the sense that they influence so much of the story, but they aren’t physically involved. They watch and influence from the sidelines. Lady Macbeth ignites Macbeth’s ambition and desire to be king by helping him murder Duncan. She is a powerful character because she has dominance over Macbeth in the beginning of the play. All four of these women add to the over all experience of they play.
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.
Throughout William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is presented as an evil, cold-hearted person, but, when it comes to the actual act of committing the murder, Lady Macbeth does not commit murder. In the end, it is Macbeth who plunges the knife into Duncan’s heart. Lady Macbeth had planned the whole murder, brought the daggers, and even intoxicated the guards, but it is Macbeth who ultimately killed Duncan. After the crime is committed, it is Macbeth who collapses and Lady Macbeth who smears blood on the guards to complete their plan. From Lady Macbeth actions, it is readily apparent that she is physiologically and physical capable of committing murder, but why does she not? Lady Macbeth is unable to kill Duncan because of the 1600s notion of how a woman should be, Macbeth, being a man should, be the one to seek power, and Lady Macbeth’s feminine qualities forbid her to commit such a crime.