Arthurian Legend
Arthurian Legend refers to the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
These stories were incredibly popular, and were seen as examples for ideal kingship and
chivalry. King Arthur was brave, noble, kind, and loving. His knights, too, were chivalrous,
adventurous, and determined to protect their kingdom. Lady Macbeth takes a similar role to
Morgan le Fay: she is the lover of the story’s main hero, but she is also his downfall.
Marriage and Motherhood
In the Jacobean Era, women had no legal rights in society, and this meant that when they
married, they became the property of their husbands. Their role was to have children and run
the household. Domestic abuse, and even domestic murder, was extremely common. Maternal
mortality (how common it was for a woman to die from pregnancy, childbirth, or the period after
birth) was also extremely high. A woman’s destiny was to get married and have children. Any
education she was offered was geared towards these two occupations: women were taught to
cook and clean, and for the upper classes, they might be taught to dance or embroider, all in the
hopes of attracting a man. Men were entitled to divorce or disown their wives at any time if they
felt she had dishonoured them, disobeyed them, or brought shame to their reputation.
In ‘Macbeth’, Shakespeare allows us to see how Lady Macbeth copes with these aspects of life
for women in the Middle Ages. Within her marriage, she is a dominant figure with her own
clear identity and purpose. Outside of her marriage, she is viewed only as Macbeth’s wife and a
good host. Her relationship with motherhood is much more complicated. It seems like, at some
point, she had children, but they must have died, as there are no signs of children when the play
unfolds. She tries to banish all her reproductive organs from her body, rejecting the role of
mother altogether.
Gender
Whether Shakespeare intends to show the perils of femininity or of androgyny through Lady
Macbeth depends on how successful you think her prayers to the spirits were. If we are to
believe she was successful in unsexing herself, then her villainy and disturbing personality
suggest that gender nonconformity is dangerous. By losing her femininine identity, she loses
her humanity. Alternatively, if we still view her as a female character, her acts of manipulation
and seduction portray women as deceitful, wicked beings.
She also plays a pivotal role in Macbeth’s perception of his own gender. Her highly critical
attacks on his manhood, and her perception of masculinity as violent, drives Macbeth to
murder and tyranny. This adds to Shakespeare’s exploration of manliness.
Lady Macbeth is a very unconventional female character by traditional and Jacobean
standards. She is given multiple soliloquies - something that usually only male characters
were allowed. When Shakespeare first introduces her to us, she has the dominant role in her
marriage, which would have been unheard of. Rather than appearing weak or idiotic, she is
smart, cunning, and bloodthirsty, and embraces the occult and villainy in order to achieve her