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Masculinity And Femininity In Shakespeare

1450 Words6 Pages

Doylan Mihov
Masculinity and Femininity In Shakespeare 's Works
Throughout Shakespeare 's works the presence of gender and gender-locked roles are very prominent in the plot, as well as a major part in the progression of a character 's development. All from separating the men and women by the way they should speak/ publically express themselves, to the types of stuff each is "obligated" to do. At times seeming subtle and not as relevant, can easily turn to become highly significant. We can see that in Shakespeare 's "12th Night" and "Macbeth" the stated above proves to be true.
First "12th Night" possibly the play that is most revolving around gender is basically about a duke and his failure of a relationship with another woman. Due to the …show more content…

Similarly to "12th Night," we find "Macbeth" heavily filled with ideas of masculinity and femininity throughout the play as it revolves around the growth of two key characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. To begin the story of Macbeth it all starts with the wife making a master plan for her husband to kill their leader and then he will be crowned king. After plans proceed and things work out even though there are a multitude of troubles, even more troubles come passing by. After the Macbeths anger many people with various other murders that come afterwards, he gets attacked by another country. Going to witches to see his future he evades the negatives and chooses to accept his safe returning and survival. Dying right after he believed he was safe, everything breaks apart and the story is over. At first seeming basic actually has so much more to gender and gender-locked roles than believed. First we realise the situations Lady Macbeth has been in, noticing how she has not once have been seen outside the household of the Macbeth family. It is a supposed gender-locked role how women are supposed to only stay at home, cook, take care of children. We only see Lady Macbeth in the households they own and supporting the male/ husband which is Macbeth. Another thing we see is how Macbeth is a soldier Men are locked into this mindset that all of them are meant to be sent away to fight for their country or land. Even though it seems rough that is how it is and men are bound to …show more content…

These were the masculine and feminine concepts and ideas about how gender and gender-locked roles are perceived and seen even in Shakespeare 's work. Namely in "12th Night" as well as "Macbeth" we saw very significant characteristics to each gender and how one does "its requirement" and how gender has been molding. We find out in both parallels very similar but a bit different, how you can take up the genders characteristics and appear as one first as we saw with Viola acting as a man and winning over Olivia, and as well as Lady Macbeth completely shifting gears and being able to be seen with very strong dynamic

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