How Did Shakespeare Portray Women In Macbeth

1. Powerful, or devilish? Strong, or demonic? Women play a crucial part in one of Shakespeare’s classics, Macbeth. Did Shakespeare intend to portray women in a positive or a negative light? In this seminar, I will explore both of these possibilities, and dissect different parts of the text in order to build up not only mine, but your opinion on this ongoing debate. As a contemporary audience, we may see a biased view of how Shakespeare was meant to portray women. This is because in modern times, women are treated equally with respect. It is the societal norms of today. An Elizabethan audience may have interpreted Shakespeare’s message completely differently.

2. In Elizabethan times, people that were considered powerful were Kings, and Thanes.

Firstly, I will analyse key quotes from Lady Macbeth, to try and decipher whether Shakespeare was portraying Lady Macbeth as powerful or devilish, at that moment in the play. In this Lady Macbeth quote from Act 1 Scene 7. Lady Macbeth is insulting Macbeth for not wanting to kill Duncan. This is a example of the switching of gender roles in Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is the powerful individual in the relationship, and Macbeth is doing what would be expected of women at the time. This argues strongly for women being portrayed as powerful, because she manages to convince Macbeth to kill Duncan. Degrading comments, such as “And live a coward in thine own esteem”. And constant humiliation, can make the audience sense the power Lady Macbeth possesses in this moment of the play.This, all adds up to make Macbeth agree to the plan. No part of this quote shows Lady Macbeth’s possible devilish side. Lady Macbeth is just using the power she possesses in her relationship with Macbeth to persuade him to do what she thinks is right. It should be noted that Lady Macbeth did not want to murder Duncan herself because he reminded her of her own father. “ I laid their daggers ready; He could not miss’ em. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t.” This shows Lady Macbeth’s softer side. This really helps the audience understand that she does show emotion, and is not completely power greedy. Some people may view this as devilish as well. While she didn’t commit the ultimate act

In Act 3 scene 2, Lady Macbeth uses rhyming couplets. She starts talking more like the witches do. This shows to us as the audience that Lady Macbeth is adopting more devilish-like tendencies that the witches have shown throughout the text. In this extract, Lady Macbeth is saying how she has what she wants, but she feels like she hasn’t gained anything from killing Duncan, and she isn’t as happy as she thought she would be. She thinks that it would be better to be the person who gets murdered, rather than the murderer who has to live with the guilt and anxiety. Lady Macbeth is struggling to live with the guilt of killing Duncan, she is plagued with paranoia because she thinks that someone will find out about the horrid deeds Lady Macbeth, and her husband committed. Shakespeare may have done this to highlight that Lady Macbeth isn’t powerful, because she can’t handle the guilt the comes with the ultimate act against God. Since Lady Macbeth cannot handle the guilt from murdering Duncan, she may be resorting to more devilish tendencies to combat it. This dramatizes the nature of crime and punishment, and highlights the fact of the dangers of ambition. I do not have time to analyse anymore of Lady Macbeth’s quotes, what do you think Shakespeare’s intentions were at this point in the seminar? Powerful, or