Example ‘Macbeth’ essay 2

Starting with this conversation [taken from Act 1 Scene 7], explore how far Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a strong female character.

In ‘Macbeth’, Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a strong character from the very beginning of the play that gradually deteriorates to become a shell of who she once was by the end. Shakespeare uses her to present to the audience that femininity is weakness but masculinity is strength, strength and power, but also in some ways emotion.

In the extract, Shakespeare describes a conversation between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth in order to demonstrate Lady Macbeth’s strength for the majority of the play. Here, she uses emasculation to persuade Macbeth to kill Duncan, saying that “when [he] durst do it, then [he] [was] a man.” Here, the symbolism of the word “man” is used to demonstrate the contrast between Lady Macbeth’s strong state against Macbeth’s more fragile state. Shakespeare does this to show Lady Macbeth’s power and strength over her husband, an unusual and untypical power dynamic for married couples for the contemporary audience, in order to demonstrate how strong of a character Lady Macbeth is. She is more powerful even than a future king and she can manipulate him to do her bidding. Earlier on in Act 1, Lady Macbeth describes Macbeth as “too full of the milk of human kindness” to kill the king. Here, Shakespeare uses the symbol of “milk” to represent feeling and emotion. This word is commonly associated with women and breastfeeding, and so here is used to demonstrate Macbeth’s weakness as his feminine emotional side. Again later in this scene, where Lady Macbeth calls to spirits to “unsex [her]” in order to remove this emotion and femininity. Shakespeare does this to emphasise Lady Macbeth’s power from the beginning of the play – but only when she has removed her femininity. Unlike Macbeth, who does feel things and does allow himself to have a feminine side, Lady Macbeth believes that femininity only brings weakness and is therefore presented as an incredibly powerful character who does not allow her feelings to take over, therefore presenting her as an incredibly strong character in the play. However, Shakespeare then shows her deteriorating state as she gradually becomes weaker, until she eventually commits suicide. In her final scene (Act 5 Scene 1), Shakespeare describes her washing her hands, frantically asking if “all the perfumes of Arabia won’t sweeten [her] little hand.” Many of these words come from the semantic field of femininity, and Shakespeare uses this final scene to demonstrate and portray how weak she now is as she has allowed her feminine side to consume her once again. Shakespeare does this to present to the reader how much Lady Macbeth changes throughout the play – from a strong, unfeminine character to a weak woman who descends into madness. Shakespeare here presents Lady Macbeth not as a strong feminine character but as one or the other – either strong or feminine – but never both at the same time and therefore demonstrates her strength but also her weakness throughout the play.

Shakespeare then goes on to use this representation of Lady Macbeth as either strong or female to present the idea that femininity and allowing one’s emotions to control one’s actions is not powerful or strong and is in fact weak, demonstrating to the audience at the time that women are not as powerful as men – a popular opinion in the 17th century. In the extract, he does this by describing Lady Macbeth in her most powerful state, when not embracing her feminine nature, as saying that she would have “dashed the brains out” of her own child had she sworn to do so. This violent imagery with verbs such as “dashed” helps to emphasise the power Lady Macbeth had when she was not feminine, and therefore demonstrates to the audience the weakness of femininity and women in comparison to men and masculinity with a very extreme example — infanticide. For the audience at the time (and indeed still now), infanticide was and is one of the most horrible crimes to commit, and the fact that Lady Macbeth would do this shows how strong she is as a character in this part of the play. Shakespeare uses this as a representation of someone who does not embrace their emotions — someone who is not feminine — as only someone with a truly strong mind, and therefore not a woman (from Shakespeare’s point of view), could do something that extreme. Therefore, suggesting that women are weak and men are powerful — or at least those who choose not to embrace their feminine side are strong, using Lady Macbeth as an example.

Furthermore, later in the play, Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth’s strong, unfeminine representation again to further emphasise this idea that femininity and showing emotions is weaker. In Act 2, after Macbeth has killed Duncan, Lady Macbeth emasculates Macbeth yet again in various ways, including using a metaphor of only children being scared of pictures when Macbeth refuses to put the daggers back. Shakespeare uses her power over him here to further emphasise her strength when not allowing her feminine side in, as she is able to at least attempt to try and control him — thus demonstrating to the audience Shakespeare’s idea that femininity holds little strength and is, in fact, for him, an embodiment of weakness.

Shakespeare directly contrasts this moment in Act 3 when Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth to “be innocent of the knowledge dearest chuck”, when refusing to tell her of his plan to kill Banquo. Here, Lady Macbeth has lost some of her power as her feminine side gradually shows. The term of endearment “dearest chuck” shows her weakness and his sudden inability to control Macbeth, and also demonstrates some form of femininity as she is no longer a powerful character but only more possessively Macbeth’s “dearest chuck.” Shakespeare, through Lady Macbeth’s gradual but clear move back to a more feminine character embodiment, demonstrates how weak femininity truly is, for Shakespeare. Previously, when Lady Macbeth was strong and unfeminine, she had control over Macbeth, but here, she once again is weak, therefore presenting this idea to the audience that femininity only brings weakness, and those who are masculine are strong and powerful. In addition, this is also presented in Act 5, with Lady Macbeth’s extreme deterioration to the point at which she is sleep-walking and eventually dies. At this point, she is nothing but a shell of the powerful symbol she once was, and for Shakespeare’s audience, she is merely a woman with no control over her husband or even her own actions. The fact that she is now shown in this way, with lots of feminine imagery and echoing back to previous things she has said but in a weaker state (“what’s done cannot be undone” echoed from Act 2 after they’ve killed the king), helps to emphasise Shakespeare’s idea that femininity brings weakness but masculinity brings power. Lady Macbeth is a strong character without her femininity and emotions, but as this gradually spills back in, she becomes a weak, fragile and powerless woman, and so is presented in this way to the audience to demonstrate the idea that femininity is weakness and masculinity is power — perhaps to show to the audience that James I, the king at the time, was a man who was omnipotent and to prove to the audience that they should respect him as a man — a powerful man — after previous weaker female monarchs.

In conclusion, in ‘Macbeth’, Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth not as a strong female but as one or the other, the two being mutually exclusive to one another. She is either a strong character or a female character but can never be both, and Shakespeare uses this and her deterioration and descent into madness and femininity once more to present to the audience that men are all-powerful and that showing emotion and a feminine side only brings weakness and fragility to those who have it.