Power And Dominance In Macbeth

Macbeth’s femininity, coupled with Lady Macbeth’s shallow masculinity is the major cause of Macbeth's demise. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth experience a role reversal, where Lady Macbeth tries to become the “male” in the relationship, and Macbeth becomes the “wife”, but later in the story, Lady Macbeth takes on the stereotypical female hysteria and Macbeth becomes the ruthless man. Secondly, Lady Macbeth bullies Macbeth into eventually killing Duncan, showing that her own ambition to the throne is much more than his. This can also be seen as an interesting exercise of gender roles, because Lady Macbeth, showing expected male traits of power and dominance with Macbeth showing expected female traits of submission and worry, Macbeth submits to his

Macbeth allows himself to be overtaken by her command over him, and ends up killing Duncan. He knows this is wrong, displayed by his internal pro and con list. This is a far cry from the expected roles of men and women during this time period, where the wife is expected to submit to the husband’s will and ambition, while unexpectedly in the first act she is the one bending him to her much stronger ambitions. For example, in “‘Be Bloody, Bold, and Resolute’: Tragic Action and Sexual Stereotyping in Macbeth”, author Carolyn Asp writes, “Lady Macbeth consciously attempts to reject her feminine sensibility and adopt a male mentality because she perceives that her society equates feminine qualities with weakness,” (Asp, 153). Lady Macbeth, as seen in the prior paragraph, is trying to “unsex” herself to become a more masculine, powerful version of herself. Shakespeare is using these gender role reversals to show her ascent into her power over him, and Macbeth slips into more resigned qualities that are equated with femininity. She is able to become more the demanding male character that is traditionally seen in marital relationships, and overpower Macbeth into killing Duncan. This role switch also reinforces gender roles, that to become the more dominant partner she needs to become the husband in the way she presents herself and her internal qualities.

Contrastingly, Lady Macbeth is gripped by a guilty hysteria that causes her to sleepwalk and imagines Duncan’s blood dripping from her hands. Macbeth ends up being killed by Macduff’s hand for his murderous crimes, and Lady Macbeth dies. Macbeth surrendered his masculinity to his wife, and then tried to take it back towards the end of their story. This turbulent reversion back to their traditional gender roles caused the downfall of both characters. This is eloquently laid out in “‘Male and Female Created He Them’: Sex and Gender in Macbeth”, where author William T. Liston states that, “When men and women step outside these sex and gender roles, they lose their humanity,” (Liston 232-233). Lady Macbeth tried to become the man in their relationship, and ended up being the root cause of Duncan’s murder by overpowering Macbeth into killing the king. Similarly, once Macbeth allows her to take over the dynamic of the relationship and he slips into a meeker state, he is more susceptible to her power and ends up being manipulated into the murder. They both lost their humanity once they stepped out of their traditional roles of husband and wife: Lady Macbeth let her ambition and masculine dominance lead her to push her husband to murder Duncan, and Macbeth allowed himself to be manipulated