How Does Shakespeare Present Gender In Macbeth

Explore how Shakespeare presents gender.

Shakespeare's portrayal of gender in Macbeth is complex and multifaceted, exploring the relationship between gender and power and challenging traditional gender roles. The play takes place in a patriarchal society, where men are acknowledged as more dominant. Shakespeare challenges these stereotypes by creating strong female characters who reject their subject roles.

One of the most prominent ways is through Lady Macbeth, who defies traditional gender roles by taking on a more masculine position in the play. She is depicted as ambitious, cunning, and ruthless, usually observed as masculine traits. At the beginning of the play, in her relationship, she is seen as the dominant partner. She frequently pesters her husband, Macbeth, for failing to act like a ‘man’ when he questions killing the king. In the dialogue, “When you durst do it, then you were a man,” She taunts her husband by suggesting that he is cowardly and has betrayed her. Lady Macbeth views masculinity as powerful, which is one of the reasons she rejects her femininity. She calls upon the spirits to take away her femininity which she

“You should be women and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.” During the Jacobean society, witches were said to have facial hair, a symbol of their involvement in witchcraft and was presumed that the devil had branded them with beards. This main vision was that masculine features on a woman were associated with witchcraft.

The theme of masculinity vs femininity is prominent in Macbeth. Femininity is associated with kindness and compassion whilst masculinity is socialized with cruelty and violence. The mark of Macbeth’s masculinity is often seen as Lady Macbeth to be his willingness to commit atrocities without weakness. Macbeth protects his masculinity by murdering Duncan and digs at his identity as a man as Lady Macbeth’s primary technique for