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Lady Macbeth's Oppression Of Women In The Elizabethan Era

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Women throughout history have continuously been oppressed and viewed as inferior whether through art or literature, and Shakespeare’s era was no different. The conventional opinion of women in Elizabethan times hinders their ability to scale the social hierarchy by deeming them weak. Shakespeare reinforces this stereotype through his portrayal of Lady Macbeth in his Scottish tragedy, Macbeth. She dons the outer appearance of a courageous partner-in-crime, but the cracks in her façade continue to show throughout the play, leading to her eventual downfall. Her unsuccessful attempts to escape the social norm are a caution to other women pursuing the same dream. In the tragedy Macbeth, Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth’s failure to change who she is …show more content…

After Macbeth’s sudden hesitancy to carry through with the murder, Lady Macbeth reveals to him that she would have “dashed the brains out” of her own child “had [she] so sworn / As you have done to this”, referring to Macbeth’s promise to kill Duncan (Shakespeare 1.7.58-59). Shakespeare composes the seemingly confident answer to convince readers and Lady Macbeth that her presence looms over her husband’s. Secondly, Lady Macbeth praises herself for her alcohol tolerance in comparison to the guards, declaring: “what hath quenched them, hath given me fire” (Shakespeare 2.2.1-2). Lady Macbeth’s rejuvenation by the alcohol which drugged two men to sleep aids Shakespeare in presenting her outward strength. Finally, Lady Macbeth chastises her husband in Act 2 through the lines: “My hands are of your colour, but I shame to wear a heart so white” (Shakespeare 2.2.67-68). Shakespeare utilizes Lady Macbeth’s condescending tone to display her pressuring influence over Macbeth. Shakespeare establishes Lady Macbeth’s dominating presence with her calculative and fierce personality that turns against stereotypical

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When looking at William Shakespeare’s Macbeth from a feminist perspective, the play is ultimately misogynistic. This was not unusual for the time period, though, because women were generally oppressed. However, the women in this play are not oppressed in the same way that women were in the real world. Shakespeare showed his misogyny through

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At first, rather than putting all the blame on Macbeth she is proud of her involvement in the murder stating: “My hands are of your colour but I shame to wear a heart so white.” Initially this villainizes her as she is in control rather than being an obedient wife going against Jacobean stereotypes

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This study will focus on the way in which Shakespeare crafts his play and uses dramatic devices in his portrayal of Lady Macbeth in order to confront the gender stereotypes of the time, femininity and the natural order of society. During the early 17th century there was a substantial fear that if women were liberated from their domestic, maternal roles, the historically patriarchal society would unravel. With prevailing challenges of gender such as “When you durst do it, then you were a man” Shakespeare uses the character of Lady Macbeth to transgress the natural limits concomitant with her sex. In order to be able to answer the research question, it is vital to concretely establish the contemporary gender roles and the context of the play.

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It’s no surprise, that Shakespeare’s Macbeth was clearly constructed as a rebellion against femininity roles of the time. During the Elizabethan era, women were raised to believe they were inferior to men since men obtained desired masculine qualities such as strength, and loyalty, whereas women were viewed as figures of hospitality (1; 6; 28-31). Obviously, not being tempted by the luxury of subservient women, William Shakespeare rebuked this twisted belief, applying that women deserve more respect than their kitchen tables.

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In his play, Macbeth, Shakespeare uses the ambitious construct of Lady Macbeth to portray his critical perception of the patriarchal Jacobean society. Consequently, Macbeth’s death is not displayed onstage reflecting gender inequality and the dangerous repercussions of disallowing women to obtain power. The persecution of Lady Macbeth fuels her desire to garner power, ultimately resulting in her manipulating and emasculating her husband to commit regicide. Sexism and the marginalisation of women causes Macbeth to call upon evil spirits to ‘Unsex me here’. ‘Unsex’ implies that Macbeth is aware of the societal disadvantage of being a woman and desires to be stripped of her feminine characteristics allowing her to become more powerful.

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In the beginning Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth was a ruthless and masculine woman. She showed the audience that, mentally and emotionally, she was stronger than Macbeth. Although as the story started to continue the audience began to see that she was becoming mentally insane. Throughout the story there was also evidence of shakespeare showing the more masculinity you had the more cuel you became.

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If he do bleed, / I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal, / for it must seem their guilt” (II.ii.51-52 & 53-55). Lady Macbeth is very angry with Macbeth, saying that he is a coward and a child who is afraid of a dead body. She yells at him to give her the daggers, so that she can paint the faces of the guards with Duncan’s blood to have it appear, as though they are the killers. Lady Macbeth becomes enraged that Macbeth is unable to complete a simple task and is acting as an annoying little kid. She aggressively puts him down when he comes to whine at her that he is unable to finish the plan.

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William Shakespeare portrayed the character Lady Macbeth to be extremely ruthless, malicious and manipulative. Thus, being the reason she could easily convince Macbeth to do her will, yet still put on such a convincing performance in front of those who knew nothing of her and her husband’s actions. Lady Macbeth shows her complexity constantly throughout the story when she shares her view-point on masculinity by demasculinizing her own husband, when she strategically plans the murder of the King Duncan, and finally when she finally goes crazy because of the guilt she possesses for not only her own actions but also turning her own husband into a

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In the tragic play Macbeth, Shakespeare’s portrayal of women shows the intricacy of the power relations between the sexes. The play was written during Jacobean times during which society was a patriarchal one. Men were believed to be superior to women and were put in power over them. This was reinforced by the belief in the Great Chain of Being, a social hierarchy believed to be ordained by God Himself in which men were placed higher than women. However, Shakespeare advocates that women can in fact be just like men in some cases, expressing and feeling the same emotions of a man and how other times women can have power over men and subvert the Natural Order.

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Shakespeare’s portrayal of Lady Macbeth is distant to the role that a Jacobean audience would be comfortable with women being in. In a time where “the repetition in a woman’s ear/would murder as it fell”; a woman readily savage and merciless caused a disturbance to their ideas of how a woman should behave. This makes Lady Macbeth one of the most striking villains in Shakespeare’s plays. Lady Macbeth’s entrance is her reaction to the letter sent by Macbeth in which he discloses the Witches’ prophecies.

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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.

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In the popular play Macbeth, Shakespeare compares the gender stereotypes portrayed to those different pre-existing ideas from other generations such as the 1900’s, the 50’s, and even today 's society. Macbeth has plenty of examples of the exaggeration of gender roles that clearly differentiate male and female by construing their proper roles as polar opposite or complementary. Examples proving that there are gender stereotypes in Macbeth pertain to characters such as Lady Macbeth, The Witches, and Macbeth himself. In Macbeth, the many different stereotypes of gender roles from throughout the century to today’s society have been displayed in many aspects of the play. With examples of the exaggeration of gender constructs pertaining to the male

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However, Lady Macbeth’s power depends on her husband’s, due to her disempowerment in the realm of the political. She believes her husband’s political power relies on him conforming to a more masculine identity. In order to convince Macbeth to undertake this transformation, like she did, Lady Macbeth must subvert the stereotypical role of a submissive wife and become domineering. This leads to her exercising power in the only form she can, that is, attacking Macbeth’s masculinity as she states: “When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man.”

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The role of women in Macbeth is very significant and Shakespeare used women often to create tension, make the play more interesting and to manipulate the audience in a certain way. In this essay I will be explaining how Shakespeare does that and how different women link to each other. Lady Macbeth is the main focus of women in this play. As audience we expect that Lady Macbeth would have similar characteristics to her husband (Macbeth) for example being loyal to the king. However, when she first appears, she is already planning Duncan’s murder when she was reading the letter, and she is viewed stronger, and more ambitious than her husband.

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Celia Beyers Tinti Period 1/5 12 April 2015 Literary Analysis: Macbeth In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, he presents the character of Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is shown, as a character that schemes into making rebellious plots. She reveals the desire for wanting to lose her feminine qualities in order to be able to gain more masculine ones.

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