The characters of Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff and the three ‘weird sisters’ offers three different views of women and they perform three different game retirements.
Lady Macbeth is one of the most discussed characters in literature.
Contrary to many of the female characters created by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Lady Macbeth is powerful and power hungry, willing to manipulate her husband to make sure that the crown of Scotland stand on his head. It schools him on how to behave and even invoke dark spirits to ‘unsex’ them and any female inclination she might have that might cause her to behave in a vulnerable or feminine manner.
Lady Macbeth, until the end of the play is broken and disturbed. Her role in ‘Macbeth’ seems to warn desperate women regarding the fate that awaits them if they try to ‘escape’ their natural femininity.
It is safe to call Lady Macduff ‘the dramatic film’ of Lady Macbeth, because her behaviour is exactly the opposite of Macbeth’s wife.
Lady Macduff’s husband flees Scotland in fear of his life, but leaves a trace. It does criticize the actions of her husband, but holds her ground loyal to their family home, where she and her son are murdered by Macbeth’s henchmen. She personifies all the qualities of ‘feminism’ which Lady Macbeth has no knowledge: maternal love, devotion and steadfast passive acceptance.
‘The weird sisters’ represent a fascination across Europe, and at the same time repulsion towards witches in Shakespeare’s day.
Women from all over Europe were charged and convicted of performing witchcraft. Those who were killed were sentenced for their crimes.
Shakespeare’s audience, for the most part, would have fully believed, and may have been appalled the witches in Macbeth. Their presence certainly added to the atmosphere of ‘creepiness’. It is interesting to note that they were hunted down, for the most part, it targeted only women and many have denounced the actions of those who persecuted a ‘witch’ as an attempt to punish women who were seen by the community as too independent or ‘weird ‘.
The maternal power in Macbeth is not embodied in the figure of a particular mother; it is instead diffused throughout the play, evoked primarily by the figures of the witches and Lady Macbeth.
Largely through Macbeth’s relationship to them, the play becomes a representation of primitive fears about male identity and autonomy itself, about those looming female presences who threaten to control one’s actions and one’s mind, to constitute one’s very self, even at a distance. When Macbeth’s first words echo those we have already heard the witches speak:
So fair and foul a day I have not seen
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
Finding ourselves in a realm with doubts upon the very possibility of autonomous identity, in the end, the play will reimagine autonomous male identity, throughout the ruthless excision of all female presence, its own peculiar satisfaction of the witches’ prophecy.
Work Citation
1]
Feraru, Cornelia. “Macbeth.” Academia.edu, www.academia.edu/36458519/Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth is one of the most discussed characters in literature.
Contrary to many of the female characters created by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Lady Macbeth is powerful and power hungry, willing to manipulate her husband to make sure that the crown of Scotland stand on his head. It schools him on how to behave and even invoke dark spirits to ‘unsex’ them and any female inclination she might have that might cause her to behave in a vulnerable or feminine manner.
Lady Macbeth, until the end of the play is broken and disturbed. Her role in ‘Macbeth’ seems to warn desperate women regarding the fate that awaits them if they try to ‘escape’ their natural femininity.
It is safe to call Lady Macduff ‘the dramatic film’ of Lady Macbeth, because her behaviour is exactly the opposite of Macbeth’s wife.
Lady Macduff’s husband flees Scotland in fear of his life, but leaves a trace. It does criticize the actions of her husband, but holds her ground loyal to their family home, where she and her son are murdered by Macbeth’s henchmen. She personifies all the qualities of ‘feminism’ which Lady Macbeth has no knowledge: maternal love, devotion and steadfast passive acceptance.
‘The weird sisters’ represent a fascination across Europe, and at the same time repulsion towards witches in Shakespeare’s day.
Women from all over Europe were charged and convicted of performing witchcraft. Those who were killed were sentenced for their crimes.
Shakespeare’s audience, for the most part, would have fully believed, and may have been appalled the witches in Macbeth. Their presence certainly added to the atmosphere of ‘creepiness’. It is interesting to note that they were hunted down, for the most part, it targeted only women and many have denounced the actions of those who persecuted a ‘witch’ as an attempt to punish women who were seen by the community as too independent or ‘weird ‘.
The maternal power in Macbeth is not embodied in the figure of a particular mother; it is instead diffused throughout the play, evoked primarily by the figures of the witches and Lady Macbeth.
Largely through Macbeth’s relationship to them, the play becomes a representation of primitive fears about male identity and autonomy itself, about those looming female presences who threaten to control one’s actions and one’s mind, to constitute one’s very self, even at a distance. When Macbeth’s first words echo those we have already heard the witches speak:
So fair and foul a day I have not seen
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
Finding ourselves in a realm with doubts upon the very possibility of autonomous identity, in the end, the play will reimagine autonomous male identity, throughout the ruthless excision of all female presence, its own peculiar satisfaction of the witches’ prophecy.
Work Citation
1]
Feraru, Cornelia. “Macbeth.” Academia.edu, www.academia.edu/36458519/Macbeth.
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