Zadie L. Besev Mr. Schlegelmilch Honors 2/29/24. Gender Roles and Why We Should Not Roll With Them Anymore Gender roles play a huge part in the way that Macbeth by William Shakespeare evolves into the madness it inevitably ends with. Gender roles have been oppressing women for all of time and the idea that women aren't equal to men has been placed on society and women for a long time. Shakespeare was ahead of his time and completely switched the societal norm of women being less than men. Macbeth by William Shakespeare is about a young man and his wife who had just been given the esteem title of thane of Glamis, but Macbeth soon encounters 3 witches who tell him that he will be king, the story goes on to show that the more power Macbeth gets …show more content…
Macbeth has just said that they shouldn't kill Duncan because he feels bad that he is Duncans host, angry at Macbeth's weakness, Lady Macbeth says, “I have been suckered. had I so sworn as you have done to this” (1.7 62-67). Lady Macbeth throughout the whole play is clearly very dominant over Macbeth and is constantly lecturing him about his indecisiveness and his unwillingness to be as ruthless. She is using gender roles to have Macbeth kill Duncan by calling him not man enough, and guilt tripping him, by saying that she would kill something so precious as her child, but he can't kill a stranger showing that he is not ruthless in Lady Macbeth's eyes. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are hosting a dinner party when Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo and gets frightened. Macbeth starts to behave strangely and the guests start to notice, to stop this Lady Macbeth pulls him aside and says “O, proper stuff! . but on a stool.” (3.4 73-81). Lady Macbeth is again using the fact that being a man, and strong and brave was such a big part of Macbeth's ego, so she used that to manipulate Macbeth by making him question his gender and his masculinity to have him stop acting