What was the role of women in Shakespeare's society and how does it help comprehend Macbeth?
In both Shakespeare's own period and in the medieval Scotland in which Macbeth is set, the role of women was generally to be subordinate to men. Women were expected to marry at a fairly young age and bear many children. They also had an important role in the household, with women of the lower classes being responsible for cooking, cleaning, and making clothing and upper class women responsible for supervising a vast staff of household servants. In Macbeth's era (but not Shakespeare's), women might also become nuns, devoting themselves to a life of celibacy and religious devotion. Unmarried women could continue to live with their extended families as unpaid servants, but the only real alternatives to marriage for most women were either prostitution or domestic service.
The women in Macbeth are striking examples of the way society viewed those few women who transgressed what were considered the normal feminine...
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roles.The witches, independent wise women with magical powers, were portrayed in the play as evil, probably instruments of the devil. To act in a strong fashion, Lady Macbeth, when she steels herself to murder, uses the phrase "unsex me here," suggesting that murder, like warfare, is naturally men's business and that she needs to cast aside her femininity to participate in it.
Discuss the role of women and feminism in Macbeth.
The primary female characters in Macbeth are Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff, and the witches. All of these female characters are strong people who are unafraid of their male counterparts and are often able to exercise power over them.
Lady Macbeth’s ambition and manipulative powers are well known. She takes a recalcitrant Macbeth and molds him into a murderous force. At one point she actually asks spirits to “unsex” her and enable her to act with the cruelty of a man.
Lady Macduff is another strong female character, although she is less well-known. When her husband flees to England to help Malcolm gather an army, she decries him a traitor. She does not simply accept his decision as right and just, and she does not consider it her place to passively accept what she considers his betrayal of his family.
The witches are the catalysts that set all the problems in motion. Although Macbeth tries to command them, they will not be directed by him. They hold him in little regard and have no qualms about leading him astray. Hecate is a female, the goddess of sorcery, and she does not seem to be answering to any male supernatural force.
Feminism was probably not much of an issue in Shakespeare's time, so it may have seemed odd to audiences that so many of his female characters were of independent mindsets. It certainly led to many interesting conflicts in his plays.