Masculinity in Macbeth Essay Sample

In previous societies, about 400 years ago, gender roles were followed very strictly, but were also normalized. Masculinity had this image of being strong, and courageous, while femininity had the image of being a home-keeper, and being gentle. At this time, this was standard, and its normalcy was never truly questioned. While gender roles were very prevalent and established at the time of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, masculinity in this play can be perceived as dangerous, especially when Lady Macbeth challenged the idea Macbeth's masculinity, then her wanting to remove her femininity to become more masculine to kill Duncan, how Macbeth takes on that dangerous masculinity, and this eventual masculinity war ruining a marriage up until both of their eventual deaths.

Near the beginning of the play, Macbeth had been told his prophecy, which was to become king. Him and Lady Macbeth decided together that what they had to do was kill Duncan, the current king, to take the throne. Macbeth did seem to hesitate though when it came down to doing so. He went back and forth with Lady Macbeth saying he wants to, then he doesn’t. “Even as Macbeth tries to logically argue against the murder plot..., his wife remains unsatisfied “ (Sweetwater). Whenever he said he didn’t want to, she called him a coward, and questioned his manliness saying: “When you durst do it, … then you were a man” (1.7). She is trying to tell him that he will only be a man if he goes and kills Duncan. Lady Macbeth is angry, and exclaims “As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that/ Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,/ And live a coward in thine own esteem” (1.7). As the story continues, he ultimately decides to kill Duncan, satisfying Lady Macbeth’s desires of him to become less cowardly. This then led to his overconfidence and dangerous masculinity as the king, wanting to push everyone and everything away. 

The witches in this story seem to just play the role of bystanders. Ever since the beginning of the play, they instigated the idea of Macbeth wanting to become king, then just watch over and see everything play out. They told him that he was bound to be king, but never told him when. All he wanted to do after he heard that prophecy was to become king as quickly as possible. They see all that goes on, say nothing, and can tell that Macbeth has let himself go after the murder of Duncan. There is this supernatural ability that these witches have, one of those being able to see and predict the future, as they did with Macbeth’s prophecy to become king. The witches chant “by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes” (4.1), stating the idea of the manipulating spirits pushing him and Lady Macbeth’s words of discouragement of his masculinity standing behind him and haunting him. “Something wicked this way comes” implies that Macbeth is now evil and has let the idea of needing to be a man and kill Duncan take over, and he now cares about nothing and no one. This idea that the witches implanted into his head made his desire to be the masculine man that was a normal gender role at the time dangerous and hurtful to those around him.

At this time in history, women were perceived to be fragile and less bold. Right in the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth was a supporting wife who had the normal gender role of a female of the time. On the other hand, throughout the play, she seems to want to be the opposite, as she wants to make herself more masculine. She fully supported the idea of Macbeth becoming king and killing Duncan in the process to facilitate Macbeth’s entry. When Macbeth becomes hesitant, she refuses to accept his resistance and says that he is not a man if he doesn’t kill him. She gets tired of his hesitation and decides she wants to take on masculinity herself by saying “Come to my woman's breasts, / And take my milk for gall” (1.4). A woman's breasts and milk that they create is a part of what makes a woman feminine, and womanly per say. When she says that she does not want that part of her taken away, she is separating herself from the normal idea of femininity at the time to take on the dangerous idea of masculinity that she has in her head. She believes that you have to be masculine to be confident and regretless, so that's what she decides she wants. On the same topic of breastfeeding, she decides that she wants to completely get rid of that part of her and says that if she had a child, she would have “plucked my nipple from his boneless gums / And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn / As you have done to this” (1.7). She said she would do this in order to prove to Macbeth that she can be more of a man than he is and that she wouldn’t care about a child just to be able to be more masculine than her own husband to kill Duncan. “It is a practically unbelievable thing for any woman to say, but goes to show how Lady Macbeth has removed herself from her femininity which she obviously believed was holding her back. As a man, she believes she could commit any act of horror to get what she wants” (Sweetwater). Lady Macbeth believed that being a woman and being feminine was holding her back from Macbeth being in power and becoming king, so she wants to take on the masculinity that he apparently is lacking so that she can kill Duncan herself. In her mind, the only way to success is to kill Duncan, which is what led her to this outrage.

For the most part, Lady Macbeth takes up that idea of the dangerous masculinity that we see in Macbeth. But how Macbeth changes due to her outrage is significantly damaging to his mental state and the idea of masculinity. Macbeth seemed sufficient with himself towards the beginning of the play. He was a strong war hero and never openly doubted himself. When he hears the witches' prophecy about him becoming king, he starts to change. He gets pushed by Lady Macbeth to kill Duncan to take over the throne, and he seems hesitant. But he is so in love with Lady Macbeth that he feels that he needs to prove to her that he is manly enough to kill Duncan. After killing Duncan, he starts to change and we can see a shift in his mindset. His feelings have shut off, so death feels like nothing to him. He decides to kill Banquo because he sees him as another threat to becoming king, so he now thinks that nothing can get in his way. He tries to get two murderers to kill Banquo and he has to do a lot of convincing to give the murderers a reason to kill him. He starts to get angry with them when they hesitate saying “Do you find/ Your patience so predominant in your nature/That you can let this go? Are you so gospell'd/To pray for this good man and for his issue,/Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave/ And beggar'd yours for ever?” (3.1). He is angry because they have feelings and emotions that are telling them to not kill Banquo, but Macbeth now doesn’t understand why they can’t kill Banquo if they really are men. Now that he has developed this idea in his head of only being able to be masculine if you don’t have feelings, he doesn’t get why others don’t feel the same way. This dangerous idea of masculinity had taken over his mind set and completely changed who he is, as one thing it caused was the death of Banquo. 

In Macbeth, there seems to be a war that starts up between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth after the death of Duncan. Macbeth has seemed to fall out of love with Lady Macbeth ever since their fight to prove his masculinity, and her wanting to take over. “She should have died hereafter” (5.5). He shows his lack of care for her by not showing any reaction to his death. He had no tears, which was seen as a feminine reaction at the time. Masculinity was about strength and not to have feelings or show defeat in any way. His drive to take on that masculinity that was so desired from Lady Macbeth took over and shut off his emotions.“Their relationship should be about balance, but neither is satisfied with the way things are because they lack the knowledge to appreciate what they have” (Sweetwater). Lady Macbeth was no longer satisfied with her husband’s masculinity, so she took that idea on herself, and Macbeth felt as though he could not satisfy Lady Macbeth for being who he truly is, so he shuts off his feelings to become more masculine. At the beginning of the story, they seemed so in love, and so strong, but there was too much of a battle between them for them to resolve their marriage towards the end. Before the murder, Lady Macbeth became too power hungry, so she wanted to be less feminine to take over, and after, Macbeth realizes the power that he has and lets his dangerous masculinity take over and shut off his feelings for everyone, especially the love of his life, Lady Macbeth. 

In our society today, it is much harder for us to judge the normalcy of gender roles in life 400 or so years ago. To us, the display of masculinity that we see in Macbeth is toxic and dangerous, even though it may have seemed normal to them. Men were supposed to be super confident, masculine, and not scared of anything, which is why Lady Macbeth got angry with Macbeth when he didn’t want to kill Duncan, and called him a coward. This situation led to Lady Macbeth wanting to take over, remove her femininity, and become the masculine person that she wanted Macbeth to be. This idea of needing to be masculine to be fearless and regretless is dangerous, which eventually led to the downfall of Macbeth's marriage. Their relationship seemed so strong and indestructible in the beginning of the play, and towards the end with the uprising of this dangerous masculinity, their relationship crumbled until both of their deaths.