Themes


Macbeth


you a man?’ and accuses him of being ‘unmanned in folly’. She then charges him with cowardice: ‘O, these flaws and starts, Impostors to true fear, would well become A woman’s story at a winter’s fire, Authorised by her grandam’ (Act 3, Sc 4)


Macbeth protests that he is as brave as any man, and that nobody could face a ghost such as this without fear:


‘What man dare, I dare:


Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble: or be alive again, And dare me to the desert with thy sword; If trembling I inhabit then, protest me The baby of a girl.’ (Act 3, Sc 4)


Ross comes close to tears in his discussion with Lady Macduff about the fate of Scotland. So


embarrassed is he by his lack of manly composure that he hurries off: ‘should I stay longer, / It would be my disgrace and your discomfort: / I take my leave at once’ (Act 4, Sc 2). As the tragedy continues Macbeth comes to see the meaninglessness in his pride as a manly


warrior. He characterises life as a puffed-up actor whose brave ‘struts and frets’ are utterly futile. Just as a candle inevitably burns out, his manly pride seems pointless when confronted with the inevitability of death:


‘Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing’ (Act 5, Sc 5)


Ultimately, Shakespeare shows how traditional masculinity is a powerful idea in society. It confers power and motivates the characters. However, as he grows in wisdom, Macbeth comes to see the hollowness of such manly pride and the play therefore undermines the traditional conception of masculinity. Macbeth also explores what it means to be a woman. Why does Shakespeare present the


witches as bearded women? Why must Lady Macbeth adopt a more traditionally masculine bearing in the play? Throughout the play, femininity is traditionally associated with weakness and fragility.


Macduff illustrates this idea: following the discovery of Duncan’s body he refuses to tell Lady Macbeth the details of the King’s murder: ‘O gentle lady, ’Tis not for you to hear what I can speak: The repetition, in a woman’s ear, Would murder as it fell’ (Act 2, Sc 3)


He feels, that as a woman, Lady Macbeth is too delicate to hear about such goriness. Little does he know that this murder was planned by Lady Macbeth and that it was she who smeared the blood on the groomsmen. Shakespeare deftly identifies the traditional view of womanhood and simultaneously undermines it. It is interesting however, that Lady Macbeth plays on the idea of the fragile woman when she faints in Act 2, Scene 3. Many commentators see this is a feigned swoon as Lady Macbeth looks to


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