End of MacBeth

I left off on my last blog post being confused on gender roles and eager to see if they would change or not. It seemed like Lady Macbeth was more in control over Macbeth in the beginning of the book. Lady Macbeth portrayed herself as a very powerful and fearless person. She was obsessed with status which is why she begged Macbeth to kill Duncan. The roles change dramatically by the end of the book. Macbeth goes on a spree of killing and Macduff is out to get him. Lady Macbeth goes from being so powerful and fearless to committing suicide at the end of the book. She was stereotyped as a typical women at the end, being weak and just giving up and killing herself. I think her personality and role changed a lot throughout the book. I also think Macbeth's role changed dramatically. He at the beginning was forced into killing Duncan by Lady Macbeth and then by the end he is killing everyone. He kills Banquo and Macduff's whole family before Macduff then kills Macbeth. I found it interesting that his role and personality changed a lot too. The beginning Macbeth seemed like a good king and by then end he didn't seem like a king and someone who should be in so much power. It's almost like he rubbed off on Lady Macbeth and Lady Macbeth rubbed off on him. Even though I have read the book two times before this, this time I realized how weird the gender roles are and how much Macbeth and Lady Macbeth change throughout the book. The gender roles are so out of the traditional role of a normal marriage in the beginning which makes it interesting to see the change of their marriage and roles throughout the whole book.

Comments

  1. Allison RossOctober 12, 2017 at 4:01 PM

    In my post, I also reflected on the switched roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Have you considered that maybe this was Shakespeare's way of punishing a woman for stepping up into a typical man's role? After she plays a huge part in the murder of so many, her conscience gets to her and she is forced to accept the blood that's on her hands. Is that because she's a woman and traditionally women are more emotional and caring? Therefore, I definitely agree with you; both of them had total turn arounds in personality and choices which is interesting to consider from a gender perspective as I have also read the book before this and never considered it from this angle either.

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  2. Paige ShrevesOctober 15, 2017 at 10:14 PM

    I also read this book in high school Ginny, and I now that I am reading from a gender and identity perspective view, I am noticing many ideas and stereotypes that I did not notice the last time. As you stated, the roles were completely reversed. I explained in my post that the roles were reversed and that we can see more humanity in the characters than in the beginning of the novel. A comment on my post that struck out to me pointed out that when the characters are described in a human way, they are then also described in a more feminine way. I found this idea to be very interesting and I believe your post infers the same ideas.

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