In Elizabethan society , it is expected that women are to be portrayed as nurturing and caring stay at home moms,while the men were considered to be the essential strength and the powerhouse of the family. Shakespeare explores the concept of ‘appearance vs reality’ by breaking the social norms of the time and unveiling the characters’ deep rooted desires. In the tragedy “ Macbeth”, the gender roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are reversed as they both seek out power through bloodlust and cruelty. While the Macbeths both had a relentless and insatiable craving for ambition and power, Lady Macbeth is presented initially as the motivating force of the relationship and Macbeth is considered to …show more content…
When Macbeth had written his wife a letter about the prophecy of the Witches, she transforms herself into a masculine role because she feels her strong devotion will help push her husband towards his awaiting destiny. “Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty.” (Act I,Scene 5 30-33). Lady Macbeth blatantly makes it known that she is the dominant force in the marriage and over her husband, Macbeth, which was not considered as one of the stereotypical social norms expected upon women in the Elizabethan era. As an example, when Macbeth was too hesitant about Duncan’s arrival to their castle, Lady Macbeth declared to her husband that he should step aside and she would take it upon herself to take care of everything. “ He that’s coming Must be provided for and you shall put This night’s great business into my dispatch, Which shall to all our nights and days to come. Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.” (Act I,Scene 5 68-62) This illustrates the role reversal between the men …show more content…
It is made apparent when Macbeth foolishly brings the daggers he slaughtered Duncan with him and he could not physically and emotionally re-enter the room where the murder took place to put them back: “I’ll go no more: I am afraid to think what I have done; Look on ’t again I dare not.” (Act 2 Scene 2 50-53) To which Lady Macbeth seizes the situation by putting the daggers back in the scene of the murder: “Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures. 'Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil. If he do bleed, I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal, For it must seem their guilt.”( Act 2 scene 2 52-57) In a similar scenario, Macbeth enters a state of paranoia upon hearing about fleance’s escape when the first murderer approaches him just before the banquet starts: “Then comes my fit again. I had else been perfect, Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, As broad and general as the casing air. But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears.” (Act 3 Scene 4
In Act 2 Scene 1, Macbeth is alone in his castle before he kills Duncan. While he is by himself he has a hallucination of a bloody dagger. Macbeth sees the dagger and tries to grab it but there is nothing. He believes that this hallucination is a sign of the murder he is about to commit.
Lady Macbeth has a glorified idea of what it means to be masculine, so she thinks that she could achieve more without her femininity. Consciously, she wishes to be, “top-full/of direst cruelty,” (I.v.48-50). Right after this, she tries to turn into a less feminine person on her own. Taking control, she manipulates Macbeth and calls him a coward, and really pushes the envelope on murdering Duncan. Lady Macbeth even tells Macbeth the plan and then says, “Leave all the rest to me,” (I. vi. 86). This is a clear gender role reversal and is the first time she tries to force herself into a non-feminine role. Lady Macbeth shows that she can take charge, but her business-like tone shows that she isn’t allowing her womanly side come out. In fact, while Lady Macbeth is ready to take charge, she has subconscious reservations. She is not able to kill Duncan herself, claiming that “Had he not resembled/My father as he slept, I had done’t,” (II.ii.16-17). While Macbeth isn’t questioning her ability, Lady Macbeth’s tone is defensive, showing that she is trying to convince herself of the same thing. This suggests that perhaps, subconsciously, she isn’t sure about killing Duncan. Outwardly, she is confident and determined, making a
In the Elizabethan era, the expectations for woman were limited to being a housewife and a mother. Women were expected to obey their husbands. These expectations, and the person Lady Macbeth actually was, are polar opposites. Lady Macbeth did rely on Macbeth, but she only relied on him because she could only obtain her power through him. The methods she used to obtain this power go against the stereotypical Elizabethan woman. She used deceit to convince her husband to commit the first murder, saying that she would “chastise [him] with the valour of [her] tongue.” (I,v, 26) What convinced him to go through with the murder, however, was when Lady Macbeth laid out the plan for him. (I,vii,60-72) After the murder occurred, it was Lady Macbeth who took control, while Macbeth was extremely shaken. She returned the daggers to the chamberlains, then again insulted Macbeth, saying she would be ashamed “[t]o wear a heart so white.” (II,ii,68) She then ordered him to wash his hands, telling him, “[a] little water clears us of this deed.” (II,ii, 70) Macbeth’s inability to stand up to Lady Macbeth showed that she had complete control over him. This was not expected of an Elizabethan wife.
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.
After Macbeth kills Duncan, he is too scared to even carry the daggers back into the king’s chamber. When the king’s body is discovered, he kills the two guards that were in Duncan’s room, and places the blame for the murderous deed upon them. His fear forces him to act this way in order to make him seem innocent. Macbeth’s fear of being caught acts as an indicator of his guilt; however at first none of the other characters are able to realize this.
Shakespeare emphasises the opulent ambience through the lavish descriptions of the banquet. The scene opens with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s warm welcome to the lords as they must “play the humble host,” being an important political stage in their lives. Here Shakespeare uses a metatheatrical reference which is dramatically effective to remind the Jacobean audience the falsity of their roles. As they are illicit figures, it sugg...
The play identifies how Macbeth faced guilt after he killed his King, “Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable.” Macbeth is hallucinating a dagger in which was caused by the guilt he feels after killing King Duncan. Macbeth also states, “I’ll go no more.I am afraid to think what I have done. Look on ’t again I dare not…..What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes.Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine….” Macbeth’s emotions are everywhere. After he killed King Duncan he immediately regretted it as he explains that no water, not even Neptune’s ocean can wash the blood and guilt off his hands. Macbeth not only faced guilt but he also losses his sanity. Macbeth hallucinates Banquo’s ghost making him scared and on edge, “[to the Ghost]. What man dare, I dare. Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The armed rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble. Or be alive again And dare me to the desert with thy sword. If
During the Elizabethan era, a woman did not have any say in the relationship with her husband, but Shakespeare’s Macbeth changes this accepted theory. Lady Macbeth is a woman ahead of her time; she is caught between today’s ambitious, powerful woman and a fragile, powerless creature of the Elizabethan era. At the beginning of this tragedy, she is vicious, overly ambitious, without conscience, and willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants. As Macbeth becomes less dependent on his wife, Lady Macbeth loses control of her husband, but mostly of herself. She is so wrapped up in the greedy world Shakespeare creates that she fails to consider the consequences of her actions more realistically. Lady Macbeth lives as if she is a woman ahead of her tiime, but she dies like she is from the “golden age of drama”.
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.
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.
Right at the beginning of Act I we are confronted with three haggard women, Every detail of this scene urges our imagination to sense a confusion of the usual human order. Their curious paradoxes, fair is foul and foul is fair' and the rhyme in which they speak. In the middle of this scene we are confronted with the startling line There to meet with Macbeth '