My attempt in Macbeth

Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare written around 1606. Macbeth follows the story of a Scottish nobleman formally called as (Macbeth) who hears a prophecy that he will become king and is tempted to evil by the promise of power. Macbeth mainly dealt with the themes of evil in the individual and in the world more closely than any of Shakespeare's other works.

2018

In an attempt to find in Macbeth a transcendental view of manhood, this article offers a brief description of some of the ways in which Shakespeare pursues the fragmentation of gender barriers and problematizes traditional representations of masculinity. Through a comparative analysis of the play and the 2015 film adaptation of it by Justin Kurzel, aspects such as heroic violence, sexuality, boyhood, fatherhood, and the loss of humanhood are addressed. In the end, Shakespeare’s uncertainty and Kurzel’s interpretation thereof combine in order to further illustrate the issue of masculinity.

Khulna University Studies , 2000

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a highly complex and magnificent tragedy where nemesis descends upon the tragic hero in a true tragic manner. It is as well an excellent crime story with an intricate pattern of crime and punishment. Macbeth in a sense is a criminal but he is also a tragic hero because Shakespeare endues him with qualities worthy of a tragic hero, because he has a moral weakness which impels him to criminal thoughts and criminal deeds which are his tragic acts, because his fortune undergoes a reversal, because he realizes his error and consequently suffers immensely and dies. But these tragic qualities of his together with his crimes and punishments are integrated in such adroit dramatic and psychological ways that in spite of degenerating into a criminal he commands pity as a tragic hero. Macbeth’s tragedy is that he fools his conscience but cannot kill it for it is deeply, inextricably and poetically rooted in his unconscious. And essentially it is this artifice with which Shakespeare salvages his hero.

Feminism is the most common term nowadays as since the 19th century women have been struggling for their rights and for banishing the patriarchal dominance. Women are more united and aware to establish the equity and equality in society, but men in the name of social and religious behaviour always try to enchain women and use how they wish. For these, they change their strategies frequently. As feminism is a discourse and academic discipline, people have attempted to know why and how men have started dominating women. Consequently, reading Shakespeare is important as he creates a lot of women characters in his tragedies. And a deep reading of Shakespeare's Macbeth from a feminist perspective shows how technically Shakespeare introduces Lady Macbeth as a criminal and the so-called fourth witch. Even nowhere does Shakespeare mention what Lady Macbeth's real identity is. That's why, the paper aims at reading the text from a feminist perspective to search the treatment of Shakespeare towards Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and to know why Lady Macbeth's identity is ignored here. To fulfil these, the paper briefly describes the nature of patriarchy and feminism, then the textual analysis critically with these features. Finally, it shows its findings and proves that Shakespeare is not also free from patriarchal tendency.

William Shakespeare‟s Macbeth was most likely written in 1606, three years into the reign of James I, James VI of Scotland since 1567 before he achieved the English throne in 1603. Macbeth is Shakespeare‟s shortest tragedy yet it is one of his most influential and emotionally intense plays. Macbeth portrays “the paralyzing, almost complete destruction of human spirit” (Shanley 307). Like most of Shakespeare‟s plays, Macbeth deals with the question of kingship and portrays the “problems of legitimacy and succession” surrounding serious political power that belonged to the monarch, the court and the royal councils (Hadfield 27). Numerous historical and literary studies have been conducted about various topics in Macbeth such as human desire, cruelty, and guilt. Gender role and its relation with power also have a great significance to the interpretation of the play. Shakespeare substantially emphasizes the male-female relationship and gender dynamic and does not seem to treat gender simply as binary example of male/female. Shakespeare shows the relationship between gender and power which can be related to the patriarchal discourse of early modern England. He portrays women as major determinants in men‟s actions but “their function varies throughout the canon” and also in distinct categories of either “good or evil, victims or monsters” (Berggren 18, 11). Men are portrayed as strong willed and courageous, but female character like Lady Macbeth is also given a ruthless, power-hungry personality, which is typically, in the period, more associated with masculinity. Lady Macbeth, one of the main characters in Macbeth, is deeply ambitious and her role is essentially important to further understanding Shakespeare‟s presentation of female characters. In this paper, I will provide a brief context of Macbeth in terms of contemporary issues about sovereignty. I will closely examine the role of women in Macbeth, precisely Lady Macbeth, in Macbeth‟s downfall, particularly focusing on how and why Lady Macbeth is an unsettling and disruptive force to the order of the sovereignty. The paper will cover the contemporary issue of witchcraft, to suggest that Lady Macbeth‟s gender can be associated with supernatural subversion, as well as sexual temptation and the period‟s perspective about it. The paper discusses masculinity in relation to Lady Macbeth and the relationship between the plays actions and the natural order to suggest that natural order better reveals Lady Macbeth‟s disruption as well as the notion of monster in Macbeth. This essay will end by discussing the significance of the events that happen to both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after the murder act and a conclusion.

2019

This study examines the role of women in Shakespeare's Macbeth in Elizabethan era. It also highlights the behavior of evil represented by this character. In order to achieve this objective, this study raised two questions: the first seeks to know why the author depicts women in Elizabethan era as submissive one, the second attempts to see how Shakespeare the power and the influence of Lady Macbeth in her husband in the play Macbeth. As an attempt to answer the previous questions, this study formulates two hypotheses. The first links between powerless and obedience of women to the patriarchal rules in their society. The second relates between the power and the influence of Lady Macbeth in this play. To conduct this research, we have adopted the descriptive analytical method.. The results of the study revealed that the evil displays an important role in the tragic play Macbeth through the female character of Lady Macbeth.

Born as an adjunct to the political movement, feminism in literature explores those elements that convey the idea of female alienation under the ties of a patriarchal society. As they explore the depths of human passions, William Shakespeare’s tragedies Othello (1603) and Macbeth (1606) can be considered manifestations of socially constructed genre. They reflect two different ways of addressing the feminist issue, but, as they both describe the women’s downfall, they portray the everlasting unsuccessful attempts of women to triumph over a predominantly male-controlled environment. This paper is aimed at unveiling the feminist evidence underlying in the depiction of female characters. In Othello, Desdemona, the female protagonist, undergoes a peculiar fall from grace based on male Machiavellian plotting. Whereas in the beginning she is praised by her obedient nature and devotion to her husband, in the end she is fiercely condemned by a sin which she has not committed. But, is she really portrayed as a victim? In Macbeth, the protagonists live on the terms of equals, but, when they are lured to commit a crime by demonic equivocation, Lady Macbeth assumes a male attitude and encourages her husband to take action. They become partners in crime, but it is Lady Macbeth who plays a determining role in their macabre quest for power. Becoming the queen, the decay comes from remorse which arouses during sleep time and leads her to madness. But, is she depicted as the authentic villain of the story? These two plays debate on the nature of virtue as an ethical concept. The female characters and elements in these plays reveal the tragic fate of two women who respectively represent the good and evil sides of human behaviour. By accepting her unfair death stoically, Desdemona keeps her honesty until the end, but, above all, she maintains her female honour and dignity. Lady Macbeth’s ambitions surpass the limits of human ethics. However, on the spur of her insanity, she confesses her crimes before committing suicide and reaching self-redemption. Both female characters conform to two stereotyped images of women. On the one hand, Desdemona portrays the loving wife who passively assumes the male superiority. On the other hand, Lady Macbeth represents the female associated to witchcraft and supernatural elements, who casts off her womanhood and plays a determining role in a patriarchal environment to achieve her purposes. However, they share the same tragic destiny. Although they represent two different poles of behaviour, still they portray the female alienation and the feminist struggle to reach equality in Ancient times, which is still valid nowadays. KEY WORDS: FEMINISM, PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY, FEMALE STEREOTYPES, ETHICS, EQUALITY.

2021

Ambition and regicide are two types of evil examined very closely in William Shakespeare\u27s play Macbeth. Hence, ambition is seen in the play as a sin, an attempt to jump the natural order and make a new one, a desire so intense it can lead a person into the hands of evil. Regicide, according to medieval European conventions, is to kill God\u27s anointed king, and so likewise to disrupt the natural and divine order. Macbeth\u27s illegal and immoral kingship brings death, destruction, and suffering to Scotland, whilst the good kingship of Duncan and Malcolm brings victory and happiness; the contrast is deliberate. This study offers a critical analysis of the complicated issue of kingship in Shakespeare\u27s Macbeth. It tries to analyze the brutal nature of the struggle for monarchy as portrayed in this tragedy. Macbeth\u27s regicide is discussed from its different angles, taking into consideration the main critical views produced on this issue. The method used throughout the work c...

Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare written around 1606. Macbeth follows the story of a Scottish nobleman formally called as (Macbeth) who hears a prophecy that he will become king and is tempted to evil by the promise of power. Macbeth mainly dealt with the themes of evil in the individual and in the world more closely than any of Shakespeare's other works.

While many recognize Macbeth as representative of King James I’s obsessions with absolutism and witchcraft, the play’s explorations of gender also reveal a tangible influence from the conversation surrounding the royal’s assumed femininity and hesitancy to drive England to war. More explicitly, Shakespeare’s play concerns the “womanly infirmity” of the Macbeths in their reluctance towards violence. Much like the unstable, newly-Jacobean England, the environment of Macbeth encourages a universal rejection of feminine weakness. However, the narrative path of Lady Macbeth exploits her attempt to overcome the rigid definitions of female behavior as a measure of her immorality in a way it does not for her husband. Moreover, only Lady Macbeth will meet a stereotypical conclusion by succumbing to hysteria, despite Lord Macbeth having more reason for a descent into madness. Thus, while the theatrical realm rejects general deviancy, Lady Macbeth exclusively faces a villainization founded upon the basis of sex.