Essay On Gender Roles In Macbeth

During the 1600s, gender roles were a lot more significant and strict than in our current society. The play Macbeth, written by Shakespeare, tells the story of a man who’s ambition to obtain whatever he desires leads him to face severe consequences. This well known author gave femenin characters masculin characteristics, in order for the public to view them as powerful. Giving the three witches masculin physical traits, Lady Macbeth’s change of behaviour in different environments and Lady Macduff being an example of how women were expected to behave, demonstrates how differently masculinity and femininity is communicated throughout the play.

To begin with, early in the play, we meet the three witches who are described as the opposite gender, by the other characters. After fighting with courage in their recent battle, Banquo and Macbeth come across the witches who give both of them a prophecy. The interaction between the two groups was mostly Banquo criticizing the weird sisters. “Upon her skinny lips: you should be women, / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret (Act 1, Scene 3). Those three characters were one of the most powerful individuals throughout the entire book. Being so powerful, they could not behave nor look like women. Femininity in that century represented innocence, weakness, vulnerability and other traits making women inferior to men. Since the witches fitted none of those descriptions, they had to appear masculin to explain how powerful they were. The facial hair on those women .....

To continue, Lady Macbeth puts on a vulnerable and innocent act in public, helping her not seem suspicious of assisting in any evil deed. After reading her husband's letter, Lady Macbeth starts to desire the throne, and because there was already a king, she knew that the only way to get that throne was to kill him. “Under my battlements. Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,” (Act 1, Scene 5). In this quote, Lady Macbeth asks spirits to unsex her, meaning that she wanted to to be more like a man. Asking those spirts to make her less of a woman, meant that she wanted them to give her courage to murder. In that society, it was unlikely for a woman to be having those kinds of thoughts. Later on in the play, Malcome refuses to tell Lady Macbeth with the king because he had just been murdered. “O gentle lady, /'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak: / The repetition, in a woman's ear,” (Act 2, Scene 3). It is ironic how the man wanted to protect the gentle woman from seeing the horrible crime, while in reality, she was part of it. Lady Macbeth is the one who planned the murder and also spreaded the kings blood, all over the guards. The simple fact that she was a woman, gave her the power to commit those actions, and not be looked at twice. In the same scene, her husband almost got them caught because of his rambling, but she was able to use her femininity to draw the attention to her and save them from being suspected.

Finally, Lady Macduff is an example of what most women, during that time, were expected to behave. Unlike the two examples of women given in the previous paragraphes, Lady Macduff was never aware of what was happening around her. Her husband flew to England, leaving her and her child by themselves at his castle and the only thing she could do about that was complain. “Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,” (Act 4, Scene 2). In the same scene, the lady was informed that someone dangerous was after them, but not knowing how to defend herself, she did not do anything. Usually, the man in the house is supposed to protect the wife and kids, but as Macduff was not present, the wife was clueless of what to do. “Whither should I fly? / I have done no harm. But I remember now”. This quote shows how innocent Lady Macduff was. Anybody would know that if an assassin was after them, they would try to hide because they would not consider the fact that they never had done anything. Because she did not do anything wrong, she thought the killer would leave them alone, but the entire family ended up dying.

To conclude, making the witches look masculin, Lady Macbeth being two faced and Lady Macduff’s behaviour shows how different masculinity and femininity was represented during that era. Macbeth himself married a woman that was way older than him, which was not common at that time and that could have been an inspiration to give characters traits that the public had not expected.