Questioning Definitions of Masculinity and Femininity in Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'

‘The repetition in a woman’s ear would murder as it fell’

 Macbeth is one of my favourite plays by William Shakespeare. One of the things I noticed upon first tackling this play was the presence of issues surrounding gender and sex; what expectations characters had in this regard and also how they met those expectations. Of all the characters in the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth provide the greatest opportunities for analysis through this lens, although the other characters also have roles and characteristics which either strengthen or draw attention to the gender ambiguity of the Macbeths, or make comment themselves on the nature of gender. The following passage, which comes from the Duncan’s Corpse by Susan Zimmerman, an essay found in A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare, helps greatly to illustrate this point:

‘If signification is structured by means of concepts that safely situate phenomena in categories – male/ female, sacramental/ diabolic, familiar/ alien – then Macbeth is about the tenuousness of these distinctions and the psychic and social horror that ensues when they collapse.’

The emasculation of Macbeth, due in part to his own failings and also a result, to some extent, of Lady Macbeth’s treatment of him is an important element of this theme. Masculinity in Macbeth is closely entwined with violence and ambition. Lady Macbeth accuses her husband of being, “too full o’th’ milk of human kindness” – in other words, that he is too woman-like to kill Duncan. Macbeth argues against the murder, not because it is fundamentally wrong, but instead because things are going well for him, as when he says, “We will proceed no further in this business;/ he [Duncan] hath honoured me of late and I have bought/ golden opinions from all sorts of people…”. Macbeth’s inflated sense of ambition could be said to stem from a sense of inadequacy, considering the level of success he already enjoys. He is not ‘his own man’, instead he is weak, selfish, easily manipulated and quick to fixate. Macbeth is easily manipulated by his wife; she preys upon his sense of masculinity, something which is made even more painful by her own lack of traditional femininity. Even when Macbeth is finally able to commit the act of murder, he finds himself breaking down and being unable to complete the cover-up. It falls, then to his wife to protect the couple from suspicion, meaning that again Macbeth has failed to assert himself in a ‘gender-appropriate’ way. Even the first notion of becoming king is planted in Macbeth’s mind by females, although the witches, too, have traditionally masculine appearances which confuse him, evident when she says, “You should be women/ and yet your beards forbid me to interpret/ that you are so.” The role of women in the play is perhaps even more fascinating.

Lady Macbeth is a woman of extreme character and force. Possessed by ambition, she controls, bullies and manipulates her husband, only at the end of the play discovering that even she is human and unable to escape human guilt. In fact, she actually displays a shocking degree of flippancy following the murder, believing that, “A little water clears us of this deed”. When the curtain of guilt finally falls across Lady Macbeth, it manifests itself in a form of madness, which is only evident through sleepwalking and constant hand washing, as though she is unable to properly feel and acknowledge what she has does while conscious. Not only does Lady Macbeth lack the traditional feminine ways but she also rebels against them. Rejecting her femininity, she says, “Come, you spirits/ that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here/ and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood;/ stop up the access and passage to remorse,/ that no compunctious visitings of nature/ shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between/ the effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,/ and take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,/ wherever in your sightless substances/ you wait on nature’s mischief!” This passage is very fascinating; not least because of the assertion that Lady Macbeth makes that violence is incompatible with femininity. She calls upon the ‘spirits’ to ‘unsex’ her – to remove her female characteristics and replace them with cruelty. She asks that her breasts’ milk be replaced with gall, or poison, and that she no longer experiences the ‘visitings of nature’ (menstruation). This idea that it is impossible to be both cruel and female is interesting, especially when examined alongside the character of Macbeth. It is unbelievably ironic, considering the role played by Lady Macbeth in the murder of Duncan, that when the crime is discovered MacDuff is reluctant to speak of it in front of Lady Macbeth, stating that, “the repetition in a woman’s ear/ would murder as it fell”. This again comes back to the traditional idea that a woman is submissive, fragile and must be protected from the cruelty and evil of men. None of this is true of Lady Macbeth.

 I personally felt a degree of sympathy with Lady Macbeth. It is true, of course, that she is cold and perhaps even slightly psychopathic. She tells Macbeth that if he has committed to the murder of Duncan then he must carry it out and that she has”…given suck and know/ how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me -/ I would, while it was smiling in my face,/ have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums/ and dash’d the brains out had I so sworn as you/ have done to this”. How horrific! To say that she has herself experienced motherhood and loved her child, she would still easily murder it is shocking and I believe that our culture would view it as the worst possible crime. Lady Macbeth is far from good, and she is certainly not someone with whom it is easily possible to sympathise. However, it is important to note that in the context of the era a woman was profoundly trapped in a patriarchal society, which allowed them no life or ambition of their own. That Lady Macbeth must be so cold and lacking in humanity in order to achieve her own agenda is sad but perhaps understandable.

The contrast between the characters of Macbeth and MacDuff is very interesting. MacDuff, upon discovering the murder of his family, is told my Malcolm that he must he manly and not dwell upon it. To this he replies, “I shall do so,/ but I must also feel it as a man”. Thus, to experience emotion is to be embody the true meaning of masculinity. I believe that it is this that we must take from the play, as ultimately Macbeth is defeated and MacDuff prevails. Macbeth’s weakness and ability to be manipulated by women is juxtaposed with MacDuff’s triumph, bravery, goodness and power to feel.

 I found this to be the most difficult post to write so far. Perhaps this is because it is on a Shakespeare play, and the pressure is high, or perhaps it comes from basing the post on notes made months ago. Either way, I would be interested to hear what you all think, because my stats tell me that I actually have a fair few followers!

Next week’s post will be ‘The Representation of Children in Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy’. Following that will hopefully be on Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Thanks for reading,

 - K

The Agony of Gender Confines in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' by Tennessee Williams

“A hot tin roof’s ‘n uncomfo’table place t’stay on"

Believe it or not, this play was not deliberately chosen to follow on some sort of theme that I have managed to have going through my last posts. I was not even aware of Tennessee Williams’ homosexuality until I began my research for A Passage to India! It has, however, made my reading experience more interesting, as there has been a lot of thematic crossover between this play and the previous novel, not least when it comes to ideas of prejudice and gender expectations. I have to say, I am not Williams’ biggest fan; I appreciate he was a very good playwright, but there is just something in the style that I am not crazy about. Nonetheless, I believe I have found a few interesting things to pick out and take a look at.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof premiered in 1955, when Tennessee Williams was forty-four. As with most of his works, critics tend to draw the conclusion that there is a strong link between the characters and events in Williams’ plays and the experiences he had within his own family. His father was an alcoholic travelling salesman and his mother was the archetypal Southern Belle, snobbish and, at times, verging on hysterical. Williams was particularly close to his sister, Rose, who suffered with mental illness throughout her life. The lobotomy she underwent is said to have horrified Williams profoundly. For much of his childhood, Williams’ main companions were his sister and his black nursemaid. I would question the assertion that it is this that caused his sympathetic treatment of female characters and suggest that it is a too simplistic conclusion, but this is, perhaps, a personal choice. Williams was sickly child and was apparently quite effeminate, something which his father was not happy about. Tennessee Williams, a gay man in a homophobic USA, struggled throughout his life with depression, alcoholism and a heavy dependence on prescription drugs. These experiences and circumstances, I believe, gave him a very unique insight into the struggles of the characters he created.

Gender expectations and boundaries is something that I again feel compelled to return to as a focal point. It is quite obvious that Brick does not fit the expectations of his sex from the offset, due to his probable homosexuality. He is weak, and in his weakness he is cruel. Brick is the archetypal alcoholic in this sense – selfish, needy when it comes to drink, even a little lost. He is not masculine in the traditional sense; he drinks, he does not take action when it comes to his marriage and he does not assert himself. Even his broken ankle is symbolic of his emasculated impotence. Interestingly, Brick fails to take advantage of the fact that his possible homosexuality could be accepted by both his wife and his father, the latter even going so far as to say, ‘“Always, anyhow, lived with too much space around me to be infected by the ideas of other people. One thing you can grow on a big place more important than cotton! – is tolerance! – I grown it.”’ – p. 78. All of the prejudice and disgust that Brick must contend with appears to come directly from himself: ‘“You think we did dirty things between us… You think Skipper and me were a pair of dirty old men?” – p.77. I would infer from this that Brick really did love Skipper, and that it pains him to think that the feelings he had could be summarised by a few sexual acts. 

Of course, the rest of the world would probably not have been as accepting, but it is easy to forget this when reading Cat on a Hot Tin Roof because the family is so close, it almost does not feel like there is an outside world – life on the plantations seems to be that oppressive. I believe one would find it difficult to avoid looking at the character of Brick through a ‘biographical lens’, as it were, as Williams’ own homosexuality and experiences as an effeminate child must have had some bearing on the creation of a character so unable to meet the gender expectations thrust upon him.

I personally found Maggie to be a far more interesting character than Brick. Her own challenging of gender confines is far more complex; on the one hand, she is child-like and naïve (‘“It was one of those beautiful, ideal thing they tell you about in Greek legends…”’ – p.42), while on the other hand, she is sexually aware and actually displays sexual needs of her own, such as when she challenges Big Mama, saying, ‘“Why don’t you ask if he makes me happy in bed?”’ – p.35. Maggie is, therefore, nowhere near to being the ideal ‘good’ woman. The following passage, again from Critical Theory Today, is possibly quite interesting to look at now:

‘… Patriarchal ideology suggests that there are only two identities a woman can have. If she accepts her traditional gender role and obeys the patriarchal rules, she’s a “good girl”; if she doesn’t, she’s a “bad girl”… “Bad girls” violate patriarchal sexual norms in some way…’.

I think it is important to consider this element of the play, even if it may seem a minor point to some other readers. It all comes back to an analysis of the strength of gender confines; Maggie cares for her own sexual needs but is unable to convince her husband to sleep with her, thus failing to be ‘sexually attractive’. In addition, Maggie has yet to conceive a child, which, in comparison to Mae and Gooper, means that both Maggie and Brick have failed to achieve something which is essential to their fulfilling their gender roles, albeit it in different ways. A woman’s femininity is partly expressed through her child-rearing, while a man’s masculinity is partly expressed through his virility and ability to ‘sire’ a child.

One final point I would like to touch upon is the question of who is responsible for one’s happiness. Brick’s failure to support Skipper, and his rejection of his friend, had an unfortunate result. Brick is obviously feeling very guilty, as though taking on a belated responsibility towards his friend’s happiness. However, he does nothing to make his father’s life easier and more comfortable and is, at times, actually cruel to his wife. Meanwhile, Big Daddy treats his own wife appallingly, while she herself still hangs upon his every word and whim to reach her own satisfaction. The entire dysfunctional family is so uncomfortably close to one another, while all the while plotting against, and failing to take any responsibility for, each other.

Ultimately, I understand the appeal of Williams’ work and his play was fairly enjoyable. I suspect it simply wasn’t to my own personal taste, and, after all, a play is generally written to be performed instead of read. I would be very interested to see what others have thought on the ideas I have mentioned so, as always, feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks for reading,

-      -  K

Virginia and Vita; 'Orlando: A Biography'

This is my first attempt at analysing and discussing a piece of literature outside of the confines of an essay (aside, I suppose, from the copious notes I made on Macbeth earlier this year). The copy of Orlando that I was reading was actually part of a collection I received for my birthday, which is the Wordsworth Classics hardback edition (published 2007), containing eight different pieces by Woolf. As such, my page number references are totally all over the place and I have developed an even more crooked back as a result of carrying one thousand pages of hardback book with me everywhere I go.

 

I have really enjoyed Orlando, even if at times it became a quite difficult read. I liked it, I think, because it’s so very different from the things I usually read. I’m a pretty dedicated to Realist literature, so this was bound to be an interesting, if slightly irritating, read.

  

Orlando was conceived by Woolf as a ‘writer’s holiday’ of sorts; an escape from more demanding work. It was published on October 11^th 1928, was Woolf’s sixth major novel and was a huge success. It was based upon the life of Woolf’s lover, Vita Sackville-West, whose son, Nigel Nicolson, described the novel as, “the longest and most charming love-letter in literature”. Orlando is not overtly homosexual but the protagonist’s change from male to female certainly suggests a love that crosses all gender barriers. This was my first experience of Woolf’s work and I haven’t been disappointed; while the plot at times felt like trying to follow the paths of every spark in a bursting firework, the language is rich and ultimately a journey by itself. It is language with which Orlando himself is concerned; its difficulties, inadequacies but also its power.

 

Of course, the bizarre nature of the plot (Orlando ages only 36 years in a lifetime spanning three centuries) is to be expected in a Modernist piece of literature. According to one of my literary bibles, Studying the Novel by Jeremy Hawthorn, 'modernists question the ‘dogma of realism’ and search for alternatives to the well-made plot, the rounded and lifelike characters and the known world wholly accessible to reasoned and rational enquiry'. Indeed, there is nothing rational about the life of Orlando! Modernism typically focuses on the inner-self and the internal states and processes of the characters’ consciousness. Perhaps, then, this is the reason why at times I was utterly lost in this novel, confused about what was happening, where the action was taking place and even in which century it was taking place! For somebody who has for so long been committed to Realist texts, this has been a very strange, but ultimately rewarding, reading experience.

 

Despite Orlando being the product of the love between two women, I have found in my (admittedly limited) experience that there is a vacuum where the great lesbian literature ought to be found. Of course, we now have Sarah Waters, a hugely gifted researcher before we even begin to admire her books, and also I suppose Jeanette Winterson, although she’s not exactly my cup of tea. There are plenty more, I’m sure. However, I am not speaking about today; I mean if you examine the entire literary cannon. I could mention Sappho (and avoid the obvious joke that "it’s all Greek to me – HA!"). Then there’s Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. But ultimately, there seems to be a void in works throughout history that deal openly with ‘Sapphic love’. Perhaps I am wrong? If anybody can think of any others, feel free to point them out to me!

 

But back to The Well of Loneliness, and this is where it starts to fit together somewhat. Many people are of the opinion that Orlando is, as Vita Sackville-West’s son expressed, a beautiful love letter from one woman to another. I was interested to discover that while Woolf's work is not at all overtly homosexual in content, Radclyffe Hall's really is. I do actually have The Well of Loneliness on my shelf but have yet to read it. Anyway, in my research conducted around my reading of Orlando, I discovered that just under a month after Orlando was first published, The Well of Loneliness was the subject of an obscenity trial (I must admit, I’m quite curious to read it now!). Many people were reluctant to testify in its defence; however both Virginia Woolf and E.M Forster were among those who stepped forward to act as witnesses, although they were not actually allowed by the court in the end. On the topic of those who did not agree to testify for the defence, Woolf is quoted as saying, “they generally put it down to the weak heart of a father, or a cousin who is about to have twins”. I found it interesting to see this scathing comment from a woman who never truly expressed her love for Vita Sackville-West through her writing. 

 

Sackville-West’s son, in describing his mother, said, “she fought for the right to love, men and women, rejecting the conventions that marriage demands exclusive love, and that women should love only men, and men only women. For this she was willing to give up everything… How could she regret that the knowledge of it should now reach the ears of a new generation, one infinitely more compassionate than her own”. Perhaps, then, it is a shame that Woolf never properly addressed her passionate love for Sackville-West in her writing. However, in Orlando, Woolf does make a comment on monogamy; ‘Orlando could only suppose that some new discovery had been made about the [human] race; that they were somehow stuck together, couple after couple, but who had made it, and when, she could not guess.’ – p. 517. 

 

Orlando’s switch from male to female opens up many interesting points. I found it very interesting that upon waking from yet another of his strange extended naps, he finds himself to now have the body of a woman. Orlando reacts cooly and, in fact, seems not to really pay much attention, or change her behaviour very much at all. It is only later, when confronted with society, and seeing the different way in which she is now treated, that her behaviour and feelings of self change. This is quite clear here: ‘It is a strange fact, but a true one, that up to this moment she had scarcely given her sex a thought… it was not until she felt the coil of skirts about her legs and the Captain offered, with the greatest politeness, to have an awning spread for her on deck, that she realised with a start the penalties and privileges of her position.'

 

Throughout the novel frustration and fascination with the inadequacies of language are expressed. Within the first few pages, Orlando discovers that, 'green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces.' – p.404 I absolutely love this idea; that there are some things simply too complex or divine for words. Woolf does a good job nonetheless. Later, Orlando again finds that, 'Ransack the language as he might, words failed him. He wanted another landscape, another language.' – p.422 When Orlando begins writing, he struggles again with language, '… he now undertook to win immortality against the English language. Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them…' – p. 437. 

Woolf herself was a dire perfectionist, totally incapable of taking criticism (aren’t we all!). I found it interesting, from a socio-biographical viewpoint, to see Orlando suffering so immensely. In contrast with the earlier observation that words fail one when attempting to describe nature, Orlando later wonders, 'Why not simply say what one means and leave it? So he tried saying the grass is green and the sky is blue… looking up, he saw that, on the contrary, the sky is like the veils which a thousand Madonnas have let fall from their hair; and the grass fleets and darkens like a flight of girls fleeing the embraces of hairy satyrs from enchanted woods.' – p.446. The language here is truly luscious, and we see this contradiction in the uses and applications of language.

I did perhaps go off on a bit of a tangent here, but I began to wonder about the very nature of questioning language itself; the tool with which we analyse and identify the things around us, and, ultimately, define our very selves. To question the ways in which we do these things is a brave thing, I think, and likely to make one start to feel a bit mad.

 

This quotation is magical, 'But if sleep it was, of what nature, we can scarcely refrain from asking, are such sleeps as these? Are they remedial measures – trances in which the most galling memories, events that seem likely to cripple life forever, are brushed with a dark wing which rubs their harshness off and gilds them, even the ugliest and basest, with a lustre, an incandescence? Has the finger of death to be laid on the tumult of life from time to tikme lest it render us asunder? Are we so made thay we have to take death in small doses daily or we could not go on with the business of living?' – p. 431 These Great Sleeps that Orlando experiences are totally fascinating; I’d love to have a go at analysing them through different critical lenses. But I haven’t really had the time, so for now I’ll just have to allow that quote to float around my mind.

 

I have been entirely converted to Virginia Woolf’s writing, if not completely convinced of the merits of Modernism as a movement. It is only unfortunate that it has taken me twenty years to discover her. In a literary sense, Woolf defines her gender, if not her generation. There was so much more I wanted to mention (Woolf’s reasons for writing a ‘biography’, Orlando’s poem etc) but this will just have to do.; I hope I haven’t bored anybody too much!

 

Even though I didn’t quite feel her love for Vita Sackville-West in Orlando (perhaps only through my own immaturity), I would just like to end this post with something I discovered during my research. It is general knowledge that during her lifetime Virginia Woolf suffered from severe periods of depression. On March 28^th 1941, Woolf committed suicide  by filling her coat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse. A portion of the River Ouse ran through the town in which I lived for some years as a teenager and the image of Virginia Woolf calmly walking into the water has haunted me for years (that, along with Javier doing the same thing in Les Misérables). I don’t think that the following really needs much further comment, so here is the letter she left for her husband Leonard, with whom she did not have a sexual relationship but whose soul was clearly very deeply entwined with her own.

 

'Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier ‘til this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been. – V'