Essay On Gender Roles In Macbeth

“Why so! Being gone, I am a man again. Pray you sit still” (III.iv.133-134). To be a man again, what does this really suggest. Macbeth is one of the most thoroughly dissected texts in literature to this day and is packed with societal elements like gender roles that are still prevalent in our modern society. In Macbeth, William Shakespeare believes that gender roles can manipulate people into conforming to their roles through challenging manliness, assuming weakness, and convincing of manhood.
Early on, Shakespeare uses gender roles to set the stage for the rest of the play, in this case making Macbeth go through with killing Duncan. Macbeth has just been promoted to Thane of Cawdor and Duncan now dines in his home. Macbeth has heard the prophecy and seen that it has all been true up to this point, so does his wife. Out of greed and other reasons Lady Macbeth wanted Macbeth to kill Duncan because she believed “when you durst do it, then you were a man” (I.vii.54-58). By use of gender roles, Lady Macbeth is able to convince Macbeth, a manly ruffian war hero, that he would only be a man if he carried through with this deed. Lady

Just after the murder of Duncan, Macduff arrives at Macbeth 's home and wakes them at the door. Macbeth and his wife are entirely aware of what horrors lie in the other room, but nobody else knows that they do (yet). After Macduff has seen Duncan 's dead body he stumbles back in awe and declares that this bloody scene “‘tis not for you to hear what I can speak! The reputation in a woman 's ear would murder as it fell” (II.iii.92-95). Macduff is saying that because Lady Macbeth is a woman, she is not fit to hear of the violence due to her feminine fragility. Macduff has unknowingly categorized Lady Macbeth because she is a woman into someone who is weak and