Breastfeeding is an essential biological quality of maternity, and in turn womanhood. Infants rely on their mother’s milk to grow and thrive, and breastfeeding is often a means by which a mother and child bond. Lady Macbeth claims to know this love between a mother and the child that relies on its mother for nourishment. She evokes pleasant thoughts of a smiling, nursing child too young to even have teeth, and turns this fundamental element of maternity on its head. If she had promised to murder, she claims, she would kill her nursing child in exchange for power. A mother neglecting, harming, or killing her child is a universal taboo, and this sentiment alone is enough to turn the audience against Lady Macbeth. She makes the image of this
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He drew on them closely for plays such as King Lear and Richard III, sometimes taking direct quotes or even plot points from the text. He most certainly drew on some of this plot points for Macbeth. Therefore, Shakespeare was well-aware that his portrayal of gender roles in 11th-century Scotland were inaccurate. Scottish women at the time of Macbeth’s rule were allowed to be strong, even blood-thirsty. He knew imparting 16th-century gender roles on his character, and then having characters defy those roles, would be controversial and potentially fear-inducing. His choice manipulate these cultural factors were deliberate, by why? What did Shakespeare hope to do through these …show more content…
Lady Macbeth is unprepared for the masculinity she pushes on her husband, and even more unprepared for the guilt that consumes her. Though she previously dismisses Macbeth when he hallucinates, she soon descends into madness, hallucinating a bloodstain on her own hand, crying “out, damned spot! Out, I say!” (5.1.25). This bloodstain that brings her guilt is reminiscent of the “compunctious visitings of nature” she wishes away earlier in the play. Her womanhood has come back to haunt her. The tenacious drive and resolve Lady Macbeth has at the beginning of the play has, by Act 5, turned into guilt and delusion, while her husband’s ambition is, at this point, unchecked. She sleepwalks the halls of the castle, desperate to wash away her guilt. She claims that “hell is murky,” denoting a familiarity with such evil and darkness (5.1.26). Like Eve, she has made her world worse from hers sins. Her womanly emotions are the weakness that lead to her
He drew on them closely for plays such as King Lear and Richard III, sometimes taking direct quotes or even plot points from the text. He most certainly drew on some of this plot points for Macbeth. Therefore, Shakespeare was well-aware that his portrayal of gender roles in 11th-century Scotland were inaccurate. Scottish women at the time of Macbeth’s rule were allowed to be strong, even blood-thirsty. He knew imparting 16th-century gender roles on his character, and then having characters defy those roles, would be controversial and potentially fear-inducing. His choice manipulate these cultural factors were deliberate, by why? What did Shakespeare hope to do through these …show more content…
Lady Macbeth is unprepared for the masculinity she pushes on her husband, and even more unprepared for the guilt that consumes her. Though she previously dismisses Macbeth when he hallucinates, she soon descends into madness, hallucinating a bloodstain on her own hand, crying “out, damned spot! Out, I say!” (5.1.25). This bloodstain that brings her guilt is reminiscent of the “compunctious visitings of nature” she wishes away earlier in the play. Her womanhood has come back to haunt her. The tenacious drive and resolve Lady Macbeth has at the beginning of the play has, by Act 5, turned into guilt and delusion, while her husband’s ambition is, at this point, unchecked. She sleepwalks the halls of the castle, desperate to wash away her guilt. She claims that “hell is murky,” denoting a familiarity with such evil and darkness (5.1.26). Like Eve, she has made her world worse from hers sins. Her womanly emotions are the weakness that lead to her