Where Lady Macbeth disrupts the gender hierarchy of her time by asking for the spirits to “unsex” her and fill her “from the crown to the toe top-full, Of direst cruelty,” (1, 5, 41-44), in an attempt to undo her gender imposed femininity. It can be seen that Lady Macbeth is prepared to cloak herself in evil, to place Macbeth and therefore herself in a position of power, making her pivotal to many events in the play. Whilst Lady Macbeths quest for power consumes her, she still remains aware that the stereotypes associated with women do not allow her to directly attain power and as a result indirectly satisfies her lust for power through her manipulation of Macbeth. It is through Lady Macbeth’s influence on Macbeth’s fate that Macbeth is characterised as a tragic hero, where Shakespeare encourages the audience to both pity his tragic fate and see tragic consequences of disrupting natural order through the assumption of unchecked
Where Lady Macbeth disrupts the gender hierarchy of her time by asking for the spirits to “unsex” her and fill her “from the crown to the toe top-full, Of direst cruelty,” (1, 5, 41-44), in an attempt to undo her gender imposed femininity. It can be seen that Lady Macbeth is prepared to cloak herself in evil, to place Macbeth and therefore herself in a position of power, making her pivotal to many events in the play. Whilst Lady Macbeths quest for power consumes her, she still remains aware that the stereotypes associated with women do not allow her to directly attain power and as a result indirectly satisfies her lust for power through her manipulation of Macbeth. It is through Lady Macbeth’s influence on Macbeth’s fate that Macbeth is characterised as a tragic hero, where Shakespeare encourages the audience to both pity his tragic fate and see tragic consequences of disrupting natural order through the assumption of unchecked