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Defining a Masculine Womanhood

Woman in Shakespeare are usually portrayed as weak and compassionate. They are
shown as one sided, minor and static characters. Macbeth proves to disputes these classifications
of women through Lady Macbeth, who can be characterized emotionally and psychologically
equal if no higher than the men while still retaining her femininity. William Shakespeares
Macbeth imposes a paradoxical view on what womanhood is, defining them as strong sources of
power and influence even higher than the men, who are able to be cruel and criminal as men
although later they are reveal as their weak and womanly stereotype.
Power is one of the definite qualities possessed by all major women in Macbeth. Their
power can be thought of higher then the men in the case of Lady Macbeth and the witches.
Women in these cases have no authorial power over the men but have such as substantial
influence over the plot and as well as the men shows how their able to rein supreme among the
genders. Lady Macbeth examples how woman are show powerful through her ability to control
her husband. Her control or rein is more indirect in that she influences Macbeth. In Act 1 scene 5
Lady Macbeth opens a letters sent to Macbeth. Afterwards she expresses herself stating,
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'ldst have, great Glamis. (1.5.14-21).

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Her ability and lack of fear to open the letters shows a stubborn egoistic person in Lady Macbeth
showing her independence from her husband. In coercion to what she says, Lady Macbeth shows
that she is the manly in her actions and ideals likening Macbeth to a woman in comparison. This
switch in gender roles shows her dominance over Macbeth who nature is more passive like a
woman should be. Macbeth mentions later For thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing
but males. (1.7.73). praising her for her manly and persistent spirit. This sets the role of woman
being more influential and in essence power than the men. The witches also prove to display
womans supremacy and influence. Although ugly and crude, these women had influence over
both the natural and supernatural. Unlike most women they have the ability to control entire fates
and their powers seem all but limited. Like Lady Macbeth they also have influential power. In
act one scene three, the First Witch tells of her conquering exploits of a sailor. She describes of
the suffering that she has caused him.
I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se'nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost. (1.3. 17-24).
This act shows how the women in Macbeth are portrayed as powerful and influential characters.
The witches have power above that of the natural world. Unlike Lady Macbeth the witches
utilize not only their status and fortune-telling ability to gain influence by convincing others to

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fall into their fate such as Macbeth but are proven to have a physical power that they can utilise
to influence the people. The witches have an extremely large in that through fear that they give
off from their practices, they are able to manipulate others into believing them. Being a woman
in Macbeth is about the power and influence. They are able to control and manipulate situations
to their favour by controlling the men. In Macbeth women are the representation of true power in
the play.
The women in Macbeth are also exposed as criminal, cruel and selfish. This display of
women imposes a darker feeling towards women showing a malevolent and more eerie character.
They are shown out of a stereotypical womanly character in that their kindness, nurturing and
giving no longer exist. Cruelty and selfishness are to characteristics that define these women.
Lady Macbeth again shows a very tyrannous character. She is like a male in the sense that she
has no care or honour towards people around her. Her cruelty is shown in act one scene five. In
an attempt to fortify her mentality, she pleas for callousness.
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood,
Stop up thaccess and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th effect and it. Come to my womans breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on natures mischief. Come, thick night,

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And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry Hold, hold!(1.5.36-52).
Lady Macbeths gesture to witchcraft show how determined she is to get the throne. It portrays
her as selfish for the fact that she wants to kill Duncan. Ironically she poses that to fill from her
crown to her toes with cruelty. This parallel somewhat shows a Lady Macbeth in her asking
wishes to be removed from womanhood and filled with cruelty. She feels that her woman hood is
hampering on her composure and wishes to be cruel. Later she is shown as a ruthless woman in
when Duncan is killed. Her emotion is all faked as well she portrays not direct cruelty, but
indirect cruelty in forcing her husband to kill her. The witches also hold true to this outlining of
selfish and cruel woman in the actions of the first witch. Their power, unerringly identical to
Lady Macbeth has caused them to become selfish and believe they are higher than the average
person because of them always achieving and getting what they want. The first witch tells of her
story that she cursed a sailor because of the wifes selfishness. She implores that her actions of
the wife ensued her spite. The first witch tells,
A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd.
Give me, quoth I.
Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone,
master o the tiger.(1.3.4-8).

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The wife did not share the chestnuts with the witch who was starving; the witch spites her by
causing her husband to suffer at sea. There are parallels of selfishness between both the witch
and the sailors wife. The sailors wife portrays that even an unimportant woman as selfish and
unwilling to share. The witch shows selfishness in the fact that she would spite the woman and
attack her innocent husband. It also shows her cruelty. She attacks an innocent man over such
simple things showing how the women are aggressive and vindictive in Macbeth. These Women
are crueller than the men. They abuse their power for their own selfish causes. Also they care
cruel in the manner that they do it because they have no sensitivity towards anyone.
Our initial portrayal and idea of what a women represents is twisted, eventually at the
end of Macbeth woman are shown as there stereotype of weak and feminine. The mask of strong,
manly characters falls along with Lady Macbeth. Macbeths raise of power beings the downfall of
Lady Macbeth. At this point we see Lady Macbeth portrayed as an actual woman and slowly
begins to fall apart becoming the woman that she has been supressing or unsexed herself from.
Lady Macbeth in a conversation with her husband is told to not worry about that is happening.
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to th' rooky wood. (3.2.47-53).
Lady Macbeth no longer has say in what happens and Macbeth has taken deeds into his own
hands. We see here that she has be stripped of her masculine power and placed back as a woman

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in the eyes of Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is now in her stereotypical role as a woman. Macbeths
courage is the defining moment in which the idea of what a woman represents changes. Lady
Macbeth is now a humble and feeble person now in that she is losing her masculine faade. A
women now represent someone lower than man; a complete parallel to her initial role. We see
her true character in act five scene one, as Lady Macbeth becomes unstable due to guilt. She
begins to sleep walk and hallucinates as her chambermaid and the doctor watch her.
Out, damned spot! out, I say!One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't.Hell is murky!Fie, my
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power
to account?Yet who would have thought the old
man to have had so much blood in him? (5.1.25 34-40).
Finally feeling the guilt overtake her for all that her and Macbeth had done and changed to get
power. Her womanhood is finally realised at this point. We slowly begin to recognise that she is
weak. Stereotypically it is called womanly gentile and fearful. Lady Macbeth is subconsciously
fearful of what has happened and what will happen to her. She no longer seems able to contain
herself emotionally, and begins to react more like a woman than a man. Aft wards it is later
revealed that Lady Macbeth had killed herself. Her guilt must have taken over and overwhelmed
her being with disgust. Lady Macbeth reveal that she is not cold, but has the compassion and
caring feminine attributes showing us that women in the play actually have womanly
dispositions.
Macbeth portrays woman in both a masculine and feminine way. It places women and
characterizes a woman as a source of power and gives them a cruel and foul nature usually found

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in men while depicting the soft and femininity of woman. Lady Macbeth and the witches show
how women are portrayed to be strong figures that have a mass influence of their surrounding as
well it show defines a woman as cruel and malevolent through their selfish actions towards their
surroundings. In end it expresses women as weak and womanly showing their emotional
incapacity and weakness. Women are shown in many different ways, taking both female and
male aspects. The play skews the definition and woman combining both aspects of the genders
into their characterisation.

Works Cited
Ed. Roma Gill. Shakespeare, William. Macbeth: Oxford School Shakespeare. Toronto,
Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.