Deceptiveness In Macbeth

In the Elizabethan era most women were submissive, they always listened to the men. They cooked and cleaned the house while their husbands worked. On the other hand, men aren’t known as the caring type. They are looked at as strong and independent. The men were in charge and they would go to work all day expecting to come home to food on the table. When they finished eating they would relax while their wife continued to pick up the house. In the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, gender roles reinforce the idea of deceptiveness. Men act like stereotypical women, and women act like stereotypical men. The men in the play Macbeth acted like women. They may have looked like men, but their emotions and actions weren’t usually manly. …show more content…
They show their dainty side but all in all they are manly. The play starts with three witches. A few scenes later (Act one, scene 3) Banquo can’t seem to tell if the weird sisters are male or female due to their beards. Notable notes says, “...the beards add a supernatural feel to the Witches’ personas, since it is not the norm for women to sport beards. Also, the beards blur the sex of the witches, adding to their ambiguity in the play: Are the witches good or evil? Are they telling the truth or not?” This is a good way to explain the witches and their guy like features. The second female who flipped the scripts is Lady Macduff. Lady Macduff stands up for herself and refuses to give into the orders, even if she does end up dying. In act four scene two a messenger comes in and they say, “I doubt some danger does approach you nearly.” This means that the messenger thinks/knows that Lady Macduff and her son are in serious danger. Later, the messenger suggest that she leaves. To this Lady Macduff says, “Whither should I fly? I have done no harm...Do I put up that womanly defence to say I have done no harm?” In other words this shows how much a woman should defend themselves. Apparently women should use excuses to get out of danger and other things “not suitable” for the female. The last woman who acted more like a man is Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth calls her husband a coward and she pressures him into murdering the king based purely on greed. She says to Macbeth in act one scene seven, “Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’, like the poor cat i’th’ adage?” This basically means, that you want to do something but you won’t, like the cat in the proverb that wants the fish but refuses to get its feet