Mrs. Putnam is telling the jury “You think it God’s work you should never lose a child, nor a grandchild either, and I burry all but one?” (Miller, 152) Ann is so jealous that she accuses goody nurse of witchcraft because she thinks Mrs. Putnam put a spell on her not to have kids. Mr. Putnam later says “When Reverend Hale comes; you will proceed to look for signs of witchcraft here.” (Miller, 152)
How does Lady Macbeth change over the course of the play? Over the course of the play the characters of both Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth develop intensively. They share similar ambitions, but it is Lady Macbeth who dares to do unspeakable things to accomplish them. This creates great conflict within Lady Macbeth who does not conform to the traditional female stereotypes of her epoch.
The jealousy and greed Abigail has for John Proctor is what inspires her hate for his wife, Elizabeth, and what causes the death of many of the women in Salem due to the accusations of witchcraft. The fear the young girls have of being punished for simple things, such as dancing and small lies, to begin with, is what ulitmately creates a bigger mess and allows them to be manipulated by Abigail. Abigail’s own fear is what causes her to continue creating lies to save her own life. These human emotions were easily avoidable, but the intense devotion to God is what instilled the fear of sinning in the townspeople’s minds, which led to the death of many innocent
“Goody Proctor is a gossiping liar,” (12). Abigail views Elizabeth as an obstacle between her and John and in act 2 Abigail tries to murder Elizabeth. “He has lifted the poppet’s skirt and his eyes widen in astonished fear,” (74) Cheever is horrified by the discovery of a needle in the belly of Mary Warren’s poppet. The needle in the poppet represents murder and Mary admits that Abigail sat beside her as she made the poppet. Clearly trying to kill someone for personal gain can not be denied as satanic work, but while Abigail did fail, using Mary as her pawn is still evil in its own right.
The three witches and Hecate (The Queen Witch), present a menacing aspect and develop a strong connection to the audience of Shakespeare since utmost did believe in Witches and magic at the time. Yes, it may oppose some religions that oppose magic and witches', but the witches’ develop a strong connection to the audience. Symbols of fate, temptation, evil and the supernatural, creates an intriguing atmosphere, and the weird
Stoker portrays the “new woman” ideology as dangerously unconscionable and morally unsound. He creates Lucy’s character to demonstrate to the audience of how susceptible a young, persuadable Victorian girl could be towards the dangerous influence and allure of the “new women” ideology. Lucy Westenra’s character previous to her transformation into a vampire suggests to us that she perhaps possesses some of the ‘new woman’ aspects considered unpleasant. These aspects are that she is attractive to three men as well as she displays a realm of sexual fascination way before becoming one of the “Un-Dead”.
In Tartuffe, She Stoops to Conquer, FuenteOvejuna, and the Kibitsu Cauldron, there are expressions of the powerful female figures, who represent different manifestations of female power. Each female figure has positive and negative characteristics about them, but all of them symbolizes the idea of hope and standing up for what is wrong in their society. In the play, Tartuffe, Dorine is the servant, who does not hold her tongue, especially when it is about someone, who is causing madness within the household. Dorine knows how wicked Tartuffe is and how arrogant Organ is for forcing Mariane into marrying Tartuffe. She tries many times to make Orgon see that Tartuffe is not right for his daughter, and she said, “…he gives her daughter a man
In Shakespeare's shortest and popular tragedy, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy reveals her intentions to lose femininity in order to become mentally strong and ruthless, and it also depicts the idea of masculinity associated with power and authority she craves for. When Lady Macbeth cries, “Come you spirits/….. unsex me here,/ And fill me from the crown to toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty!” she implores the spirits to take away everything that makes her a woman so that her femininity does not interfere with her heinous plan to kill Duncan.
This again shows how she wishes to be more manly and less motherly to carry out her plan. She is ambitious to murder Duncan and hopes for her body to be filled with more cruelty than ever to act upon her brutal ideas. Unlike most female characters in Shakespeare’s plays, Lady Macbeth desires to be less maternal and affectionate. She hopes to gain more power mentally as she prays for spirits to fill her with sadism and brutality. One last disturbing quote from Lady Macbeth is when she is proposing Duncan’s murder to Macbeth and says, “Will I with wine and wassail so convince/That memory, the warder of the brain,/Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason/A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep/Their drenchèd natures lie as in a death,/What cannot you and I perform
While Mary Warren was trying to explain what had happened, Abigail and the other girls pretended to see a bird and said that Mary was cursing them, dishonestly. ” Oh, Mary, this is black art to change your shape. No, I cannot, I cannot stop my mouth; it’s God’s work I do” (224). This is evidence of Abigail being manipulative because it made Mary start to question whether telling the truth was worth it or not. Mary eventually gave up hope and switched sides, accusing John Proctor of being the Devil’s man.
Mrs. Miller, George and Lydia should have stood up to the kids instead they allowed the culture of rebellion to flourish. Although children symbolize innocence, in the context of these stories, the children signify selfishness, violence, and manipulation. “The Veldt” takes two children and shapes them into spoiled parent killers, while “Miriam” presents us with a little girl who is psychologically tormenting a lonely, elderly woman by the same name. These stories are staggering because they contradict the deeply entrenched perceptions society has of children: blameless, loving, curious presences who can bring so much love and joy to their caregivers.
The witches in the play Macbeth constantly speak in a strange way. They talk in riddles that often have more than one meaning. I think the reason why Macbeth is giving the witches attention to them is because of their outlandish claims, and confusing riddle-like way of speaking. Any person that talks, or physically appears strangely automatically gets more attention than someone who looks ordinary. Since the witches are also strange in appearance, this only makes them stand out from the ordinary.
Women are evil, or the epitome of. This has become an unsightly, though commonly used, metaphor in literature and even daily lives. In the play Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, it is stressed subtly that the nature of evil sprouts from women. This can be seen in the characters of the Weird Sisters and their Queen, Hecate, and Lady Macbeth. From the beginning, the Weird Sisters, or the Three Witches, were the seed of temptation planted inside of Macbeth.
Gender-Role Reversal in Macbeth During the time period in which Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, the frail, tender, and submissive stereotype of women was in full force. Yet, in Macbeth, Shakespeare writes women to be powerful, intelligent, and dominant; Macbeth was full of gender-role reversals. Lady Macbeth showed many examples of this althroughout this five act play.
Throughout history, stereotypical profiles of what a man or woman should be have determined how they are perceived by others. Men dominate their marriage, prove themselves courageous in the line of battle, and do whatever they need to do in order to achieve their goals. Shakespeare's representation of women, and the ways in which his female roles are interpreted and enacted, have become a topic interest. In one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, Hamlet, a female character by the name, Ophelia, is portrayed as an immensely weak character.