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Lady Macbeth: Gender Roles In The Elizabethan Era

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Not so Lady Macbeth
Gender roles play a huge part in history as women have always been seen as soft, very primitive, and especially proper. Lady Macbeth challenges these gender roles to an extreme as her character is highlighted as a power thirsty and sinister woman who will do anything to get to the crown. In the traditional gender roles of Elizabethan society by being characterized by Shakespeare as a very sinister woman who will goes as afar as murder and treason to obtain her darkest desires. The Elizabethan times took place during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign on the English throne. During this time period, prosperity was extremely rapid, which resulted in gender roles being exemplified even more than before. Men were the obvious superior to women and treated them like objects. Women typically …show more content…
Lady Macbeth does such malicious things that make you wonder if she is even human, let alone female during the Elizabethan period, the “golden age” of that time. However, we are quickly reminded of her close to home humanity as she slowly but surely breaks down into insanity and commits suicide because of the guilt and pressure that was upon her. Lady Macbeth’s evil actions were very unheard of during this time period and are still pretty far-fetched to this day. A lady during the Elizabethan era commiting any sort of violence or crime was simply unheard of, but this so called “Lady Macbeth” that Shakespeare created was a part of two murders and planned to execute even more as time on the Scottish throne went on. Women usually could not possess any sort of power on their own, so a women’s power and rank in society was determined by a combination of who they married and what social class they were born into. Because Lady Macbeth could not hold any true power, she puts her desires and wants through the very powerful Macbeth who can make her dreams comes

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