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Lady Macbeth is a female character who changes throughout the play How far do you ag

Can someone pls mark and give me feedback? Ofc i would write two more paragaphs, but how is it coming along so far?

Lady Macbeth is a female character who changes throughout the play

How far do you agree with this view?

To begin, it is evident that Lady Macbeth is presented as a contrast character (foil) to stereotypical women and their accepted and widely practiced beliefs and ideas of patriarchal systems in the Jacobean society through her subversion of gender norms with her husband, Macbeth. She emasculates him and gaslights him to force him to commit the treasonous act of regicide in her pursuit of power and monarchical status in Jacobean England. She describes Macbeth as feminine and weak by stating that ‘when thou durst do it, then you were a man’. This shows that Lady Macbeth indicates to her valiant husband at the time that he is feeble and killing the king, taking the throne and having excess ambition for power would make him a manly figure. The plosive alliteration in ‘durst do it’ successfully embeds and highlights her power and dominance in their relationship through the hars’d’ sound. Furthermore, the imperatives used by Lady Macbeth would show her puppet strings on Macbeth by emphasising his trapped and externally controlled mind. Contextually, Jacobeans would have been disturbed by the inverted relationship and quite shocked by the grasps she has on her lover. This may have been seen as another factor to her downfall near the end of the play.

In the extract, Lady Macbeth is emphasised as having suffered a tragic downfall and being subject to the consequences of her previous, treacherous actions that pushed Macbeth over the edge to commit the ‘deed’. Lady Macbeth seems to believe that ‘all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand’ which indicates to the audience that she regrets taking control and disturbing the natural order of society (Great Chain of Being) as she wants to be seen as ‘little’ and longs for her hand to be ‘sweetened’ aiming to restore the patriarchy as it would have been seen as the ‘correct’ ideology of the time. The words ‘will not’ also show a sense of futility and lack of hope as she has permanently affected her, Duncan’s and in consequence, the entirety of Jacobean England of the time. She may have acted as a microcosm of the entire female demographic to not fight or try to destroy the Patriarchy, but to accept it and fill their job in society. Contextually, Jacobean’s would see the contrast between the two versions of Lady Macbeth which would emphasise her wrong-doings ,her horrific deed and her final acceptance of the tragic deed she catalysed which would act as a warning to the spectators to not fuel their ambitions and to always fit their mould in society regardless of their situation or personal desires In order to keep the Great Chain of Being intact. Furthermore, Shakespeare would have used Lady Macbeth to satisfy King James I during the rendition of the play and make his beliefs and ideas more public and widely accepted than they already were.

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