Women In Lady Macbeth

Women are the jewels of creation. They are seen today as the most beautiful treasure that a man feels the need to protect. However, back in the time period of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, women weren’t treated nor did they act the way they do today. Back then, women were “expected to assume a more passive role” (Bolon). This however was changed when Shakespeare decided to show that women could be different, especially in his Lady Macbeth play. Furthermore, in most of Shakespeare’s works, women are seen as modest, obedient, and shy, except for Lady Macbeth, who was one of the most ambitious characters Shakespeare ever created. Women in the works of Shakespeare such as Hero in Much Ado About Nothing, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and

To start, in Romeo and Juliet, Juliet presents a very interesting but normal character. The reason she may be seen as a normal character is because she wasn’t a rebellious one until later in the play of course. Juliet was just living her life listening to her mother and being tended to by the Nurse (Gill). If there was ever any disagreement, all she could do was plead and that was it, the thought of doing more was not to cross the minds of women during that time. Shakespeare made sure he showed a compliant and obedient person in Juliet; because that was the way a woman should act. Moving on, to Hero from Much Ado About Nothing, who was the perfect example of how women should’ve acted in those times. When Hero was commanded to do something she did it, when her father had decided that Claudius would marry her, she had no problems against it. Even when Don Jon plotted to break her and Claudius apart, she had no want for revenge; she just acted as the frail woman she was with nothing but sadness in her heart (Irvine). In addition to the people’s ridicule towards her she still remained perfect towards her behavior, keeping obedient, modest, and shyness. Another example of Shakespeare’s women was Gertrude in Hamlet. This woman was the model for how some men at that time wanted the women to be, submitting and blind to the decisions of their husbands. Gertrude was just

Lady Macbeth had the ambition; she had what Macbeth did not. She desired what for a woman in those days was abnormal, and that was power (Dall). Her hubris was at such a high level that when she found out about the witches’ prophecy, she was willing to do whatever she could to use Macbeth to gain power (Dall). However, again it was uncommon for a woman to want such things as power. So Lady Macbeth showed that she wanted to trade her gender for power, “unsex me here” (Dall). This is still a way to show that women did not have much say because that was what Lady Macbeth was despising of, Lady Macbeth wanted to be rid of whatever made her feel like a woman, she just wanted to be without a gender so what she desired would be felt as normal (Dall). On the other hand, there is a counter argument that can be made about Lady Macbeth. Although it is known that Lady Macbeth would have done anything to gain power, she did have a limit. This boundary was displayed when she could not kill Duncan herself, with all the ambition and the want to be of neutral gender, Lady Macbeth could not kill the king because he looked similar to her father (“Macbeth”). This could probably mean that even though she tried to not think like a woman, she could not escape