Gender

• Gender


  The concept of gender, and the roles the characters are confined to because of it
• Masculinity is seen as the desired trait and the male characters are often offended if someone questions their manhood
• Gender in the Jacobean era

  • Gender was a very strict and rigid construction and for the most part determined male and female roles within society
  • Gender was an establishment upon which the hierarchy of society was built
• Expectations for women in the Jacobean era

  • Loyal and respectful daughters, wives, and mothers
  • Received little to no education
  • Very restricted in their movements and decisions in life
• Expectations for men in the Jacobean era

  • Householders, politicians, landlords
  • Encouraged to be aggressive, particularly in their sexuality
  • Bread-winners, needed to be financially independent
  • Being a warrior was viewed as one of the most honourable things a man could be
• Macbeth


  • Insecure about his masculinity, which is often questioned by Lady Macbeth
  • Masculinity is tied to honour, not just violence
• Macbeth's fear and paranoia

  Deemed incompatible with the Jacobean view of masculinity, so he tries to repress or reject these feelings
• Macbeth's attitudes towards masculinity almost do a full circle, as he decides to fight to the death in the final battle
• Malcolm and Macduff


  Offer an alternative, more emotional form of manhood that seems to triumph overall
• Lady Macbeth


  • Manipulative and domineering, rejecting the traditional subservient wife figure
  • Her lust for power drives the plot forward, but her power is purely mental
• Lady Macbeth's manipulation of Macbeth

  Associates femininity with the fall of man, like Eve convincing Adam to eat the Forbidden Fruit
• Lady Macbeth's character


  • Highly significant in Shakespeare's presentation of gender
  • Manipulative and domineering in her marriage
  • Her lust for power drives the plot forward
  • She attacks Macbeth's manhood to get what she wants
  • Her power is purely mental, she doesn't commit acts of violence herself
• Lady Macbeth's manipulation of Macbeth

  • Associates femininity with the fall of man
  • Her bullying leads to Macbeth's tragic downfall in the same way Eve convinced Adam to eat the Forbidden Fruit
• Femme fatale


  An archetype of femininity where a woman charms and seduces her lover, to his detriment
• Lady Macbeth: '"may pour [her] spirits in [his] ear" (1.5)'
• Lady Macbeth's desire to "pour [her] spirits in [his] ear"


  • She wants to persuade him to do her bidding
  • The reference to "spirits" connotes the occult, as if she wants to possess Macbeth
• Shakespeare links witchcraft with a woman's dominance over her husband, implying that it is unnatural for women to have power over men
• An alternative interpretation is that Shakespeare is criticising how society denies women their own freedom and autonomy
• Lady Macbeth's soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 5

  She rejects her femininity within the play, and it is implied that this act is what enables her to pursue her ambition
• What Lady Macbeth asks the "spirits" to do

  • Unsex her
  • Fill her "from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty"
  • Make her "blood" be made "thick"
  • Stop up "the access and passage to remorse"
  • Prevent "no compunctious visitings of nature [to] / Shake [her] fell purpose"
  • Take her "milk for gall"
• Aligning herself with witchcraft suggests all her actions in the play are evil, maybe even suggesting all powerful women are in league with the Devil
• If Lady Macbeth is successful in "unsex[ing]" herself, then her murderous behaviour is the opposite of femininity
• Shakespeare suggests you lose your humanity if you defy your gender roles
• Lady Macbeth frequently questions Macbeth's masculinity


  She uses this as leverage to get him to do what she wants
• Lady Macbeth: '"Are you a man?" (3.4)<|>"What, quite unmanned in folly?" (3.4)'
• It is only possible for Lady Macbeth to manipulate Macbeth because his masculinity is so fragile
• Lady Macbeth: '"What beast was't then / That made you break this enterprise to me? / 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," (1.7)'
• Lady Macbeth's accusations against Macbeth

  • She accuses him of being a bad husband and breaking the Code of Chivalry
  • She implies she will only deem him a "man" if he kills Duncan, linking the validation of his manhood with the fulfillment of her own desires
  • She dehumanises him and calls him a villain for denying her what she wants
• The Witches are an archetype of 'ugly' femininity
• The Witches' appearances are presented as grotesque and revolting because they aren't purely feminine
• The presentation of gender varies greatly throughout the play
• Macbeth is arguably Shakespeare's most misogynistic play
• All of the women, except for the supernatural witches, are dead by the end
• The main female characters all contribute to Macbeth's downfall, tempting him with power or persuading him to commit murder
• The death of Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff suggests women suffer from the sinful deeds of men
• Lady Macbeth's death (or suicide) seems to signify her feminine kindness winning over her masculine or genderless wickedness
• Macduff's sensitivity encourages the same compassion in Malcolm, and so these feminine qualities take the throne