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The Role Of Masculinity In Macbeth And Today

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Imagine yourself as a child. You are playing on the playground with your friends. Suddenly, a child approaches you and starts to tease you. What do you do? If you don't fight, you are a coward. If you cry, you are weak. If you start to tease the child, you teach yourself that it is all right to devalue others. These are the problems that create stereotypes of masculinity and this can be shown in the play Macbeth and today. In Macbeth, William Shakespeare suggests that even though men and society have progressed in one's idea of a man during the 1600’s, society has not really progressed because society's modern stereotypes of masculinity as it relates to violence, emotions, and attitudes towards women.

Shakespeare suggests that society has progressed and regressed based on one's stereotypes of masculinity relating to violence. In Macbeth, Macbeth is shown three apparitions while visiting the weird …show more content…

One of the apparitions warns Macbeth of Macduff. Macbeth kills Macduff’s family in order to lure Macduff to him. While Macduff is searching for Macbeth, he refuses to kill Macbeth's servants because they “Are hired to bear their staves: either thou, Macbeth, / Or else [his] sword with unbattered edge / [He shall] sheathe again undeeded”(Act 5.6.18-20). Shakespeare shows the progression of the meaning of masculinity by contradicting the stereotype of violence that many people had during the 1600’s. During that time, it was expected of a man to fight as a way to express his masculinity and power, but Shakespeare shows that to be masculine a man does not need to be hostile towards innocent people. On the other hand, the documentary The Mask You Live In shows the regression of the stereotype of violence that

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Susan Griffin once said, “Masculinity is a terrible problem, as we construct and shape it.” Men in today’s society cannot show emotion and cannot act the way they want for society has built up an expectation for men to follow. Society makes men its puppets and plays them the way it wants. Men often feel pressured because of highly set expectation of society and this is expressed in the article “Pain,” by Geoffrey Canada and the play Macbeth, written by Shakespeare. “Pain” is about a young football player who had injured himself while playing football, while Macbeth is about a man who lusts for power.

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Macbeth hallucinates a vision of a bloody dagger pointing him in the direction of the king, and interprets it as a sign to go through with the murder; however, he goes back on his word a moment later, doubting its significance: “Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / To feeling as to sight? or art thou but / A dagger of the mind, a false creation, / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?” (Shakespeare II.

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In Macbeth and The Mask You Live In, the characteristics of masculinity begins with the questioning or threatening of their manhood, which then leads to successive violence, and lastly, the desperate behavior that occurs when ashamed. In Macbeth, and The Mask You Live In, Shakespeare investigates the connection between a man’s questioning and

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In the play Macbeth, by Shakespeare, Shakespeare criticizes the violence and cruelty that is present in masculinity even though masculinity was seen as a strong and respected trait in men. In the beginning of Macbeth Shakespeare views masculinity as a trait of a warrior and a protector. This is shown during the war between Scotland, the Norwegian King, and Scottish rebels. A servant brings a report to Duncan and tells him that they (Scotland) are winning the war and Macbeth is a big part of their success.

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Macbeth’s threatening of Lady Macbeth’s life just for her validation of his masculinity is yet another example of toxic masculinity as a theme of the poem. He seems to ridicule her with the word “dismal” as he insinuates her inattentiveness and stupidity by not recognising his savageness when he says, “Must she be next on my chopping block,/ For my brute in her dismal head to clock?”

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Frantic, he orders a group of murderers to kill Macduff’s family. Consequently, when the time comes for Macbeth to encounter Macduff on the battlefield, he exhibits a moment of hesitation before proceeding to the duel. Feeling remorse for having Macduff’s entire family violently killed, Macbeth admits that he has a guilty conscience that he does not want to kill Macduff as well. “Of all men else I have avoided thee: / But get thee back; my soul is too much charged / With blood of thine already,” (Shakespeare 5. VIII.

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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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Men were supposed to act as strong fighters, while women were locked in the domestic sphere. These gender roles are prominent in the character developments of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. At first, Macbeth is a strong, heroic solider that shows unbounded courage in battle and loyalty to his king. As the play progresses, he becomes cold, ruthless, and miserable. Lady Macbeth takes on a “manly” role, which is surprising because of how patriarchal the society is.

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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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There is a strong correlation between violence and masculinity. In the play, Macbeth by Shakespeare, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth constantly battle the challenges of manhood. This can be supported by Lady Macbeth and her “unsex me speech” (Act 1.5.47-61). During the play Macbeth, characters tend to dwell on issues of gender and their roles in society.

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In “Macbeth: The Prisoner of Gender,” Robert Kimbrough explores the topic of manliness in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. Kimbrough begins by examining how masculinity and femininity came about in the first place, stating that the origin can best come from the “Judeo-Christian version of God the Creator” (179). The differences between males and females created a hierarchy in Shakespeare’s time, where males were on the top and females were on the bottom. Kimbrough states that the differences betweens the two genders are “matters of the mind,” and believes “Shakespeare sensed that so long as one remains exclusively female or exclusively male, that person will be ... denied human growth" (179). These “matters of the mind” are what Shakespeare tackles

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but is then cast aside by her husband at the end. Shakespeare thus presents masculinity in both a positive and negative light. In Act 1, Shakespeare presents Macbeth with admired masculine qualities countered with Lady Macbeth criticising his idiosyncrasies. Lady Macbeth’s definition of a man is disparate to others’.

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Manhood is defined as the state or period of being a man rather than a child. The whole Macbeth play is surrounded by manhood. Macbeth was always trying to prove his manhood he always wanted to be the man and the boss of everything and everyone. He made it so difficult for other people to show their manhood and most of the ones that expressed their manhood were killed. Macbeth was the definition of a “man” wanting to control everyone all the time from the citizens of Scotland to his wife, I believe that in that time period it was so common for men to be controlling and bossy and Macbeth always tried to show that there was no one like him and he was not scared to demonstrate how far he could go to let everyone know that he was the boss, he was willing to kill.

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In William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, the protagonist desperately tries to live up to the image of a man that his society portrays. The search for his manhood leads him to violent acts that inevitably get him killed. In this tragedy, male and female roles are constantly discussed and defined. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth equate masculinity to violence and aggression. They both believe that in order to be a real man, then a man must perform violent acts when necessary.

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“Come, you spirits, That tend on mortal thoughts,/unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of dire cruelty” (1.5.41-44). Lady Macbeth is the personification of male dominance, ruthlessness and violence. She hopes that she could take control of all action. She yearns to be a man and her implication is that she is more masculine than Macbeth. Her drive and violent nature is more akin to men and their masculinity.

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