Gender Stereotypes Of Women In William Shakespeare's Macbeth

Women are generally considered fragile, weak, and obeying to man. In Macbeth, this is not shown. Women are highly influential, ruthless, and uncaring of everyone else. Lady Macbeth is a character that portrays these three traits. She is someone who has no sympathy for anyone, but herself. Lady Macbeth tries to break out of the gender stereotype of women being silenced. While Shakespeare represents woman in two particular ways, those who try to break traditional roles generally end up dead. One being the traditional woman, and the other trying to break off, and change their roles in society. Changes can be accepted as long as they are willing to fight their tradition. She wants to be an open person, freely to do anything, but her fate will prove …show more content…
Her unstableness resulted in her death. At this point, those who tried to rule out traditional roles, usually end up dead, as we see in Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth who could no longer support what she has committed ended up dead, “Who, as ‘tis thought by self and violent hands/ Took off her life” (Shakespeare 5.8.83-84). She is full of guilt, isolation, and paranoia. Her conscious overturned her, and she could no longer bear the guilt. Although she appears so evil, what she is really doing is trying to work herself up to the pitch of committing murder, to psyche herself up for the dreadful task. Lady Macbeth’s personality change led to her suicide. Her thoughts were justified for a short while, only until she became aware of her actions, resulting in suicide.
Lady Macbeth wanting to break traditional gender roles usually winds up in trouble. Stereotypes that insult her character, and this leads on her rampage. Shakespeare portrayed women differently only to show that some might think that they have achieved the impossible, but when they look bath at their path, it all comes down on