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Essay On Women In Macbeth

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The women in Macbeth are presented by Shakespeare to be powerful and ambitious which was unlike the typical views during Jacobean times. The playwright portrays Lady Macbeth and the witches to be highly influential to male characters in the play, which again contrasts the contemporary views to that time. Their ambition and power are demonstrated through the perversion of nature. This highlights the evil and immoral side, they possess. Shakespeare, however, presented Lady Macbeth and the witches to be manipulative and cunning, rather than violent like Macbeth was during the play. Finally, even though the women were shown to be strong throughout most of the play, Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff both have unfortunate outcomes. The women in Macbeth’s …show more content…

The word “fiend” describes an almost demonic hunger, which shows how she was seen to be immoral. During the play, in Act 1 Scene 5, she wants to be filled “from the crown to the toe top-ful of direst cruelty”, which show her desire to be morally corrupt and be only driven by ambition and power. Moreover, Lady Macbeth asks to take her “milk for gall”. This would have been very disturbing and perverted, as women at the time were seen to be only for child-bearing so, turning her breast milk into bitterness would be removing the sole purpose for her existence and would be tampering with the natural order of things. Further, Lady Macbeth would “dashed the brains out” of “the babe that milks me”. The violence and harm she would do to her child causes alarm and adds to her villinous character. This is contrasted with Lady Macduff’s gentle and carring tone she has with her son in Act 4 Scene 2 when she calls him “monkey”. Pet names show closeness and affection which clearly would lack from Lady Macbeth and her child, as she would kill it if she promised to. Therefore, the women’s supernatural and distrubing characteristics are demonstrated through their ambiguity or desire to rid themselves of feminine

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