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Macbeth Gender Roles Essay

1849 Words8 Pages

Gender roles have been changing throughout centuries and they have been included in plays, books, stories, and much more in the English Renaissance, especially in Shakespeare's works. In “Macbeth” Shakespeare’s ideas of gender roles on the main characters are different compared to the ones in the English Renaissance, but soon switched back to the original gender stereotype. “Macbeth” by Shakespeare was written during the English Renaissance period as he was influenced by one of the kings that was current in his time called King James I, compared to the rest of the plays that were written in English Renaissance “Macbeth” has a different type of style most of the gender stereotype on one of the main character and his wife.

Men in the Renaissance …show more content…

Women were only allowed “limited opportunities for their involvement; they would serve largely as managers of their households. They were expected to focus on practical domestic pursuits and activities that would be an influence on their families, but more particularly, their own husbands'' (Women in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries: Introduction | Encyclopedia.com. ) Women didn’t have many options to do during the 16 century the only jobs that they had to do was to provide service for their husband and children, not only that but that was their only main focus, if they couldn’t be able to work, even if they did they would still have to get their service to their families, but Lady Macbeth character is much different in the play than a typical woman in the …show more content…

Her sleeping walking can also mean that she is guilty but it can also resemble something that can be important to determine Lady Macbeth's change in character. “The analysis of the sleep-walking scene demonstrates that it is neither genuine sleep nor the pricking of a guilty conscience, but a clear case of pathological somnambulism, a genuine disintegration of the personality.”(Coriat) Her sleepwalking is not because she is guilty, but rather a potential disorder called pathological somnambulism, simply from her personality, but this can also “repressed emotional complexes in Lady Macbeth must of necessity illuminate the motives of the entire tragedy” as it is needed for a character after doing a bad deed or a decision to have a tragedy or a downfall, so her sleepwalking represents her downfall after her decisions she

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