Hear it not […] for it is a Knell that Summons Thee to Heaven or to Hell:” A Call to Restore Socio-political Patriarchy in Macbeth

William Shakespeare not only did breach into the conventional Renaissance attitudes on femininity but also he vehemently remonstrated against the very common stereotypes on femininity, embodying females as angles of great stature. In Macbeth (1606), Shakespeare’s most poetic tragedy, Lady Macbeth defied such common conventional stereotypes by departing sharply from her feminine nature and persisting on fulfilling her ambition to perform amasculine role to depose the king. Shakespeare’s resolutions did not express the constructive involvement of women within the political order of the time but the absence of women from the political realm. In the selected play, Lady Macbeth transforms her natural sexuality into her ambition to challenge the contemporary patriarchal culture. In effect, she transgresses the patriarchal bounds of femininity by expressing boundless enthusiasm for interfering in the political affairs of the state hence directing Macbeth to depose the king. Lady Macbeth’s excessive interference in both patriarchal and political power results in her loss of mental capacity which leads directly to her final tragic suicide,suggesting that women can never overcome the patriarchal values. To be more precise, by designing Lady Macbeth’s suicide, Shakespeare proves the right to return to undeniably patriarchal codes of conduct so as to retain the social harmony

Keywords:

Shakespeare , Macbeth , femininity , patriarchy , political order