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A Woman More Manly Than A Man
At first glance, Macbeth in William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Macbeth seems to be the perfect example of a manly Scottish thane. Macbeth opens the play gallantly killing the rebel threatening the king’s rule, but throughout the work a different reality becomes more apparent. Lady Macbeth starts out as just a woman devoted to her husband’s success, but soon she becomes worried that he may not have enough manly prowess to get to his foretold destiny to come true. Lady Macbeth begins to change herself and her outlook to produce a manlier partner for their future devious deeds.
Lady Macbeth uses sly manipulation, self-empowerment, and spiritual beliefs to in the end become even more of a man than her husband ever was. Although most marital relationships have a factor of dominance in one partner’s favor, Lady Macbeth takes subtle superiority to a different level. When the witches tell Macbeth that he will be king, he decides to kill Duncan with his wife’s full approval. After the deed is finished Macbeth is in shock over what he has just done. Lady Macbeth implies that she is braver than he is being in the moment, and therefore more manly. “My hands are of your color, butI shame /To wear a heart so white,” Lady Macbeth replies condescendingly to her husband. Lady Macbeth even takes Macbeth’s job of replacing the bloody daggers in the sleeping chamber of the dead king when he is not feeling well enough to do it.
When Macbeth worries of the blood from the murder Lady Macbeth states, “A little water clears us of this deed” (2.2.86). She stays utterly calmer throughout the entire series of events, proving her superior mental stability over her husband who has begun to hear a voice and is frightened by it. “You do unbend your noble strength to think/ so brainsickly of things”, Lady Macbeth scolds her husband while he talks of the voice (2.2.59-60). Later after killing another thane named Banquo, Macbeth talks of seeing his ghost in front of a room of guests. Lady Macbeth covers for him and chides him yet again, “O, these flaws and starts, impostors to true fear, / would well become a woman’s story at a winter’s fire, / authorized by her grandam” (3.4.64- 67).
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After many instances of Macbeth’s mental health’s downward spiral, Lady Macbeth is more in control of their relationship than she ever was before. Not only does Lady Macbeth motivate her husband through manipulation to improve his manliness, but she makes herself have more manly by self-motivation. When Lady Macbeth is told the news of her husband’s wishes to kill Duncan and take the throne for himself, she pushes herself to be stronger and less woman-like to support him in his wishes. To make this point she asks to make her monthly womanly cycle to go away, “Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse, / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose” (1.5.51-53). This would be seen as the taking of her womanhood and asking too become a man.
Lady Macbeth takes her husband’s wishes so much to heart that she goes to go any length to aid him in his efforts. She views this directly as being linked to her femininity and therefore forces herself to take on manly attributes. As well as manipulation and self-direction, Lady Macbeth uses the supernatural to help enhance her manliness. In a long soliloquy Lady Macbeth seems to be talking to the spirits. “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, / unsex me here”, Lady Macbeth chants (1.5.40-41). In a furious rage she proceeds to ask for the supernatural to take all of her feminine qualities so that she will have the power to go through with her husband’s planned murder. She thinks that for her husband to be the good and powerful ruler she wants him to be, she will have to take things into her own hands. She still believes that her husband is, “too fullo’ the milk of human kindness”, and says that she will fill her husband’s ears with harsh words once he gets home, so that he will want even more to kill Duncan (1.5.25).
Lady Macbeth continues on to ask for her breast milk to be turned to poison, to be filled with utter cruelty, and to be emotionally and physically made to a man. She even uses her new supernatural backing to invoke the night early before it would usually be dark. All of this thoroughly aligns her with the otherworldly, and helps her truly become even more of a manly character than she could have been without seeming magic on her side. Macbeth may seem like one of the manliest men anyone would cross paths with, but under the initial first impression he proves otherwise. Throughout the play Macbeth continues to have mental and emotional breakdowns while Lady Macbeth stabilizes him. She has her own motives for his success and uses her motivation to take on much of the manliness herself. Lady Macbeth uses systematic manipulation techniques, self-motivation, and the supernatural to become even manlier than her husband ever was.
