Shakespeare\'s Play Macbeth, Women Play Influence Macbeth

¶ … Shakespeare's play Macbeth, women play influence Macbeth a brave vibrant soldier, ready die king, a murderer? Discuss witches predictions portrayed Jacobean era ambitious Lady Macbeth husband deranged.

William Shakespeare's play Macbeth provides an intriguing account involving concepts like greed, the influence women have on men, and the overall idea of human nature in dubious circumstances. Macbeth is the central character and he comes to employ deceiving attitudes as he becomes more and more overcome by greed. While it is actually normal to see a person being obsessed with power and coming to act in disagreement with principles he or she previously believed in, Macbeth is also significantly influenced by women who he interacts with and it is only safe to say that they play an important role in making him commit regicide.

Macbeth is somewhat dependent to women, not from a sexual point-of-view, but from a point-of-view involving him wanting to emphasize his interest in patriarchy and in individuals who can support this concept. However, this dependency can be considered to be a reason for his failure to maintain the throne. "The restoration of the proper king and virgin Malcolm by Macduff, not of woman born, is taken to signify the victory of what is masculine and proper over what is feminine and unruly" (Bloom 174). It is practically as if Shakespeare wanted to emphasize that there is a strong connection between tyranny and femininity.

Lady Macbeth was well-acquainted with the position of women in the society contemporary to her and this is why it was difficult for her to acquire a position that would actually provide her with the respect she needed. She felt that her husband's condition was a good opportunity to upgrade her status and did not hesitate to influence him to go against the person who he previously fought for (Crump Wright 98).

The Jacobean era was filled with cases involving women who put across their need for power. Individuals like Anne Boleyn, Mary I, and Elizabeth are just some examples of women considered to have had a strong influence of their husbands during the period (Crump Wright 98). It is likely that Shakespeare's contemporaries considered the play to emphasize the relationship between deceit and women, taking into account that it was very common for them to associate cases involving men putting across dishonesty with the influence that women had on those respective individuals.

The witches gathered in the first part of the play tell the truth with the purpose of captivating Macbeth's attention. Banquo realizes, however, that matters are more complex than it might seem and attempts to raise Macbeth's awareness.

"And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths;

Win us with honest trifles to betray us" (Shakespeare 21).

To a certain degree, the witches can be considered to represent Macbeth's unconscious thoughts (Andersen 84). Such thinking was typically associated with women and it is thus logical to consider that the protagonist came to think about his thinking as being similar to three witches putting across a prophecy. Macbeth and his contemporaries were accustomed to believing that only a woman can be capable to put across dishonest thinking and that it was only natural for someone to associate schemes meant to take over the throne with women-like thinking (Muir 4).

The play is obviously meant to raise a question discussing whether Macbeth's downfall should be attributed to the female influences in his life. Whether or not they should be considered the only individuals responsible for changing Macbeth's thinking or not, the witches and Lady Macbeth "represent the perversion of early modern notions of natural womanhood and good housewifery" (Kemp 94).

The witches should not necessarily be blamed for influencing Macbeth to take on immoral attitudes. Their prophecies actually need to be considered to be symbolical representations that have been in Macbeth's mind for many years previous to his meeting with them. By looking at matters from this perspective, one might be inclined to consider that the witches and Lady Macbeth simply activate concepts that Macbeth had concealed for most of his life (Bloom & Marson 181).

Lady Macbeth practically replaces the witches and goes even further by making Macbeth feel that he is unable to assume the position he deserves because he cannot go through with murdering the King. Shakespeare does not necessarily attempt to criticize women in general through this play, as he emphasizes that not all women are inclined to put across immoral thinking by presenting Lady Macduff as a virtuous individual who is primarily interested in honest ideas (Brown 197).

The fact that the witches are physically unattractive contributes to seeing people who put across immoral thinking as being especially ugly. Even with the fact that Lady Macbeth is not physically unattractive, her evil nature appears to be more sophisticated and even more effective, as she actually influences her husband to murder the person whom he previously considered to be the most important in his life (Frochlich 49).

While many are probable to consider that the Witches have a strong influence on Macbeth, people need to acknowledge that this is all that this is -- an influence. "There is no sign whatever in the play that Shakespeare meant the actions of Macbeth to be forced on him by an external power, whether that of the Witches, or of their 'masters', or of Hecate" (Bradley 189).

In order to gain a better understanding of the influence that the witches have on Macbeth, one needs to consider Banquo's attitude when he interacts the three women. The character ignores them completely and does not even think about considering that they might actually be right. In contrast, Macbeth actually emphasizes that they might be true and that all of the actions that he performs previous to this point are perfectly justifiable -- he simply follows his life's path and it would thus be absurd for anyone to believe that he should be penalized for his behavior or thinking (Bradley 189).

The influence of the first prophecies was induced by Macbeth as much as it was induced by the witches. This actually demonstrates that the women in Macbeth's life only hold part of the responsibility associated with him murdering the King. While it is probable that his wife and the witches enabled Macbeth to go through with plans he was probably devising for years previous to actually killing Duncan, he held most of the blame, as it was primarily of his thinking that he became King.