Gender And Gender Roles In Shakespeare's Macbeth

Lady Macbeth wanted to kill King Duncan and for Macbeth to become king. She fears that her husband does not have what it takes to murder King Duncan for the title. Lady Macbeth says " Yet I do fear thy nature:/ It is too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way" (1.5.15-17) finding that her husband is to kind and noble to murder for the crown.

Macbeth is pressured to kill King Duncan by Lady Macbeth. Before Macbeth kills Duncan, he begins to have doubts about his action. Lady Macbeth gets aggravated with him and starts to yell at jim to get the job done. We can see this pressure by her when she says, “When you durst do it, then you were a man;/and to be more than what

This “future queen” sees the life she could have flash before her eyes and obviously Macbeth was hesitant because King Duncan was a honest man and Macbeth was a “servant” to him and he was family to Macbeth so he really didn’t want to go through with it. This fueled Lady Macbeth to conjure the death of King Duncan as well as covering it up. Lady Macbeth in Act 1, asked the spirits if they could “unsex” her so that she could ultimately be capable to go through with the killing. She felt like her husband (Macbeth) could not do her dirty work that she could wish that she could do herself.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth Essay Sometimes people have a goal and they won’t stop until that path is achieved. In the play Macbeth by Shakespeare it has positive and negative outcomes, when it comes to how Macbeth proceeds his life in such negative term transforming him into this man he wasn’t before. Shakespeare’s message about right vs wrong leads to the downward spiral of an individual. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth was working towards the king title, even if that led to a downward spiral in his life. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth went with a plan to kill his best friend Duncan, with courage to sticking with that plan / and: “when Duncan is asleep (whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey soundly invite him)”.

By constantly shaming her husband, Lady Macbeth holds a great amount of control on the way he sees himself. Macbeth’s actions are ultimately based on pleasing his wife. When Macbeth informs his wife on the witches prophecies, she does not believe that Macbeth is strong enough to do whatever it takes to be the new king of Scotland. In Act I, Scene 5 of Macbeth, Shakespeare writes, “Yet

In the play, Macbeth says to himself, "The ruler of Cumberland! That is a stage I should either tumble down from or else jump over, for it lies in my way. "(Act 1 scene 4 Lines 55-57)

Additionally, Macbeth is also scared when his wife brings the idea of murder to the table. Even after the murder happens, Macbeth says, “To know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself ” (Shakespeare 72). This shows taking charge by whatever means make him uncomfortable and making him unwilling to do many things. Moreover, Macbeth is seen weak when is is guilty for the murder and wishes duncan was still alive and regretting actions. He even hallucinates of a dagger with blood because he is so traumatized by the murder.

How john Proctor was a dynamic character in The Crucible and changed throughout the play because He confessed to adultry to try to save his wife. He wanted to prove that his wife never lies because the court thought she was lying about not being a witch. He wanted to prove that Abigail and the other girls were just lying to get attention. He wanted Elizabeths forgiveness so he tried to get it to confessing to people and explaining that he knew it was wrong. Therefore, How john Proctor was a dynamic character in The Crucible and changed throughout the play because He confessed to adultry to try to save his wife.

Therefore, William Shakespeare shows how the feminist perspective is not the best lens to view modern literature in his play “Othello”, when Shakespeare shared through Othello in Act 3 when he speaks to Iago that “The man whose wife has been unfaithful lives happily as long as he does not love his wife” (Shakespeare, 127). Likewise, this quote shows how the feminist perspective might not show us how women were treated in the 1600s; this scene explains how men were not expected to love their wife and not expected to care. He is allowed to be happy as long as he didn’t love his wife. This is absorbing because we can see in modern days that men expect women to love them even if they don’t. Lastly, women then and now are expected to love their husbands even if they aren’t being treated right whereas men don’t need to love their wife if they don’t want

Lady Macbeth persuades and manipulates Macbeth by pointing out his insecurities successfully and pressuring him into murdering the king. Along with this, Lady Macbeth also questions Macbeth’s manhood and masculinity when he does not want to carry out the plan when she says “When you durst do it, then you were a man;//And to be more than what you were, you would//Be so much more the man” (Shakespeare 1.7.49-51). By saying these things, Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to believe that murdering the king will be his redemption from being a

or I will not love you. This is manipulative because she is cornering her husband, so he will have no option but to carry on with Duncan’s murder. Another example is when Lady Macbeth pulls

This tactic works for her as she get Macbeth to go through with the killing of King Duncan. There are times where Macbeth is very hesitant in killing the king and but she uses her emasculating tactics to make him feel that he has to go through with the murder to feel more masculine and prove himself of his manhood . One example of how she uses this tactic is by questioning his manhood. Although cruel, this tactic works and makes her husband murder King Duncan.

When she hears that Macbeth is contemplating the murder and deciding whether to follow through with it or not, she attacks him verbally. She questions his manhood when she says, “What beast was’t, then, that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man” (I.vii.). Lady Macbeth is explaining how Macbeth’s masculinity is in question because he is wavering in his decision to follow through with the plan of killing Duncan. Macbeth is offended when she humiliates him.

In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth Manipulative and ambitious but later you see the caring side of her. Lady Macbeth does not try and make her husband the monster he becomes but after she convinces Macbeth to kill King Duncan you see the manipulative side of her. Lady Macbeth degrades Macbeth and says things like, "When durst do it, then you were a man; / Andto be much more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man" to manipulate him into doing her dirty work. Although Macbeth gives multiple reasons why he does not want to kill the king, Lady Macbeth finds ways to convince him still.

There is a multitude of expectations from the moment a baby is born. When parents discover the sex of their baby they immediately learn to parent in a way that conforms to “normal” gender expectations. For centuries people have created an unwritten and unspoken rulebook for the manner in which males and females should think, act and feel. Historically, gender norms and expectations were considerably different and arguably more significant than the way they are today. Women in the 17th, 18th and 19th century were considered the “weaker” sex, and were expected to bear children and submit to their husbands (Emsley et al.).