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Gender Roles In Macbeth

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Shakespeare did a phenomenal job of establishing and challenging gender stereotypes in his tragedy Macbeth. Throughout the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth go through a series of role reversals. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are constantly at odds due to tensions that come along with constant role reversal. Towards the beginning of the play the roles were very lucid, Lady Macbeth was portrayed as a dominant figure while Macbeth remained the submissive. That portrayal changed tremendously through the course of the play. Insert Clincher Sentence Here.
At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth taunts Macbeth calling him a coward for not following through with the murder of Duncan. She makes him question his manhood and claims he is too cowardly to …show more content…

She cannot live with the guilt that came with all the damage she has caused and begins to show signs of extreme histeria just like her husband showed in earlier acts. In Act 5, the doctor and the Gentlewoman meet to discuss the circumstances of Lady Macbeth’s mental health. The Gentlewoman informs the doctor that she showed signs of erratic behavior, such as creating an “action with her to seem thus washing her hands. [She] have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour” (5.1.20-23). When Lady Macbeth enters the scene, she showed signs of extreme delusion and claimed that there is a spot on her when in reality there is not. She screams and exclaims “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t” (5.1.25-26). Readers may notice that Lady Macbeth gained another similarity with her husband’s previous behaviors when she did this. In Act 2, Macbeth looked at his bloody hands and says “This is a sorry sight” and marvels at the guilt that comes with seeing the blood (2.2.18). As Lady Macbeth screams at these so called spots, some cannot help but question if those spots have a direct correlation with the metaphorical blood she has on her hands, which she cannot scrub off regardless of how hard she tries. By reversing the roles of the two most influential characters, Shakespeare strengthened the plot and opens up the play to

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