In the Play ‘Macbeth’, Lady Macbeth Is Presented as the Female Who Dominates Her Husband. Discuss This Statement and How Typical Lady Macbeth Is of a Woman of Her Time.
In the play ‘Macbeth’, Lady Macbeth is presented as the female who dominates her husband. Discuss this statement and how typical Lady Macbeth is of a woman of her time.
The play ‘Macbeth’ was written between 1603 and 1607 by the famous playwright William Shakespeare and it is considered to be one of his most famous darkest tragedies. It is about a regicide and its aftermath which would have been a topical issue in the period in which it was written in as it relates to the Gunpowder Plot. Since the King at the time, James I, funded the play and the actors it would have been important for Shakespeare to please him and stay on his side as some critics believe that it is a warning for anyone who tries to commit regicide. The play involves Macbeth’s wife, Lady Macbeth who is a power-hungry, dominant and ambitious woman who blackmails her husband into killing the king as he gives her too much power and freedom which would have been very atypical in Jacobean times. In Jacobean England the desire of society was to keep women disempowered and subordinate which is the complete opposite of Lady Macbeth hence her thirst for power would have been condemned. Aside from the fact that women had physical and biological differences from men, they were brought up with different aspirations and were excluded from things such as politics and medicine simply because they weren’t allowed an education and their only duties were to help mate to their husbands and bring children/heirs into the world, nurturing them and raising them. Women were regarded as the inferior gender and had to be submissive and obedient towards their husbands who saw them as their possession. In Shakespearean times the ideal woman would have been quiet and subservient; loving and tender; dutiful and undemanding – everything that Lady Macbeth wasn’t.
Lady Macbeth has been described as one of the most powerful and complex female characters in Literature and perhaps one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragic heroines.
The play ‘Macbeth’ was written between 1603 and 1607 by the famous playwright William Shakespeare and it is considered to be one of his most famous darkest tragedies. It is about a regicide and its aftermath which would have been a topical issue in the period in which it was written in as it relates to the Gunpowder Plot. Since the King at the time, James I, funded the play and the actors it would have been important for Shakespeare to please him and stay on his side as some critics believe that it is a warning for anyone who tries to commit regicide. The play involves Macbeth’s wife, Lady Macbeth who is a power-hungry, dominant and ambitious woman who blackmails her husband into killing the king as he gives her too much power and freedom which would have been very atypical in Jacobean times. In Jacobean England the desire of society was to keep women disempowered and subordinate which is the complete opposite of Lady Macbeth hence her thirst for power would have been condemned. Aside from the fact that women had physical and biological differences from men, they were brought up with different aspirations and were excluded from things such as politics and medicine simply because they weren’t allowed an education and their only duties were to help mate to their husbands and bring children/heirs into the world, nurturing them and raising them. Women were regarded as the inferior gender and had to be submissive and obedient towards their husbands who saw them as their possession. In Shakespearean times the ideal woman would have been quiet and subservient; loving and tender; dutiful and undemanding – everything that Lady Macbeth wasn’t.
Lady Macbeth has been described as one of the most powerful and complex female characters in Literature and perhaps one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragic heroines.