Was Shakespeare a feminist? In the modern sense - absolutely not. Even though he wrote iconic parts for women and there is no evidence that he was a misogynist (he did teach his daughters to read), it is notable how many of his female characters find themselves either dead or in disgrace for any sort of attempt at dominance or independence. However, it could be argued, in the alternative, that most of Shakespeare’s heroines tend to wind up in dire straits as a direct consequence of the actions (or reckless neglect) of the men in their midst. For example Cordelia, Ophelia, Gertrude, Desdemona, Katherine, Hero, Olivia, Viola, Juliet and Cleopatra all find themselves driven to madness, distraction or death by a male character’s lack of care or consideration for their needs. Lady Macbeth is no exception. Having blazed her ‘hour upon the stage’ and achieved her ‘fell purpose’ with ruthless alacrity, she spends Act Three attending to damage control, is absent entirely from Act Four (while the men get down to plotting a new war) re-appearing only briefly at the cusp of the denouement before vanishing forever.
Did Shakespeare seek to castigate the women in society to remind them that the cost for self-aggrandisement is social ostracism? Possibly - but, it is equally possible to assume that cooking up and tearing apart substantive female characters like warm bread made for a great story that got bums on seats at The Globe. Shakespeare had a lot of boxes to tick when it came to making his living sustainable. Satisfying his muse was a lower priority than, say, avoiding alienating his patrons and getting himself cancelled. Audiences were hungry for quality entertainment (when the theatres were open) but they could prove a tough crowd.
Shakespeare’s sensational presentation of the disruption of the proper order of things had to be compelling to engage the fickle mob, whilst providing them with the reassurance that its effects were only temporary and cathartically restorable. Female characters were a tool in Shakespeare’s extensive writing toolkit; they are best understood as constructs he could manipulate to make his storytelling as colourful and enticing as they were bloody and devastating. A good man losing his way is a terrible shame. A good man losing his way because he was foolish enough to trust a woman’s judgement, is a tragedy. Watching a woman suffer an ignominious death as penance for her actions, while he dies a noble death with his dignity intact - that’s entertainment.
In 11th century Britain (when Macbeth is set) Patriarchy as part of the national identity was generally accepted to be the norm with most people dwelling in rural communities and women carrying out traditional roles in the home. Sometimes though, women were also ‘expected’ to help with men’s work at pinch points in the feudal year - such as the harvest. So, there is historical precedent for women to work AND take care of the home in certain circumstances. Today, we might call this ‘having it all’ but back then, any semblance of emancipation also came with the stinger of it being entirely at the behest and prescription of the older men: non-negotiable and subject to modification at any time. When Lady Macbeth refers to ‘my battlements’ at the news that Duncan is coming to visit, there is no doubt of her dominance at home when Macbeth is off carving up enemies of the state. When Duncan arrives, it is Lady Macbeth who greets him as Macbeth weighs his options behind closed doors’. Duncan is gracious enough to thank her for her pains and even affords her the more formal ‘you’ as opposed to ‘thee’ (which would designate her as his inferior) and she deferentially extends the hand of welcome to him, while plotting his grisly murder with a metaphorical dagger behind her back. Lady Macbeth has ‘mettle’ but, on the surface, she is the perfect hostess. Gullible Duncan has literally no sense of the nest of vipers he has unwittingly strayed into at Dunsinane. He can’t even smell it - ironically referring to the air around Inverness as 'pleasant' and noting only the delicate Martlet's willingness to hang their 'procreant cradles' from the castle's walls - while inside Lady Macbeth sharpens her knives imagining battlements plagued with croaking ravens.
Women were supposed to be innocuous and charming and invisible - and therefore conveniently above suspicion. Some very exceptional women were granted automatic dominion over men - however they were the exception rather than the rule. Most mediaeval mistresses relied on the protection of an older male family member or a husband for their survival - and it was a position most of them were sage enough to accept and abide by.
By the 16th century, when Shakespeare was writing his plays, very little had changed. Women were still considered ‘chattels’ (the legal term for barterable goods and property), and were wise to put up and shut up to avoid trouble. Elizabeth I’s motto was, ironically, ‘video et tacio’ (latin meaning ‘I see and keep silent’), a dictum that she freely broke at will if it suited her but, much like Queen Victoria in the 1800s and even our own late Elizabeth II, she clearly did not see it as part of her legacy to meaningfully challenge gender roles as a matter of Crown policy. She refused to marry, but that was apparently as far as she was prepared to go. At home, the man was the head of the household and the women his servants. There existed, therefore, a microcosm of the Great Chain of Being in every household in England. Lady Macbeth could be seen to be subverting the status quo with her masculine behaviour and lack of restraint. For this, she is punished with the loss of her sanity and her life - which she ‘took off’ herself - as Malcolm notes with disgust at the end of Act Five, effectively cheating justice for her complicity in the crime of regicide - but probably also for her offensive unnaturalness procured entirely for the benefit of her tyrannical husband.
Incidentally, suicide was also considered a mortal sin - just to compound the insult.
Lady Macbeth is derived from a real figure in history (as were Duncan, Banquo and Macbeth). According to The Holinshed Chronicles, the real Lady Macbeth is recorded as having a ‘burning and unquenchable desire’ for power. However, Holinshed also notes that, in those times, women often went to war alongside their men and showed similar courage and tactical ability in battle suggesting that women, too, could be relied upon to be highly effective and ruthless warriors. Perhaps this explains Macduff’s strange decision to leave his wife behind in Fife. Maybe he thought she’d put up more of a fight if his castle was ‘surprised’. Maybe - although she might have stood more of a chance if he’d sent her letters detailing his plans and ambitions. No letter came however. Shakespeare had other plans for stranded Lady Macduff and her ‘pretty chickens’. Lady Macduff is a construct of the model Shakespearean woman purposed by Shakespeare as a direct foil for Lady Macbeth herself: magnifying the latter’s audacity and divergence with the former’s distress and vulnerability. Two women apparently calling the shots might have been harder for him to justify in theatrical terms; particularly since his message for King James about the abuse of absolute power necessitated the appearance of Hecate and no fewer than three powerful witches as well. The slaying of Macduff’s family which alludes to the biblical Slaughter of the Innocents - also on the orders of a paranoid tyrant - creates the motive and opportunity for Macduff to galvanise Malcolm to return to Scotland to claim his throne. Moreover, it provides the justification for the regicide of Macbeth as an act of revenge - which Shakespeare hints may have been Macduff’s plan all along.
Shakespeare would have certainly studied Holinshed for inspiration and then cut his version of Lady Macbeth according to his own narrative cloth. Perhaps his controversial depiction of her was meant to symbolise the conflict that women found themselves in when the goalposts of expectation tended to be constantly moving about. Wife, mother, servant, mistress, fighter or a combination of all? Given that women were expressly forbidden (by God’s law) to receive any meaningful education or be trusted with any tangible responsibility, it isn’t surprising that some of them occasionally underwent something of an identity crisis when the unexpected brought them into direct conflict with what they understood was traditionally expected of them.
When Lady Macbeth exclaims that ‘all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand’, she acknowledges in a single breath both culpability and frustration at her lack of agency constructed entirely by a society where it was men’s hands that held all the cards. When she calls on the ‘murdering ministers’ to ‘unsex me here’, it is ambiguous as to whether this is a reference to time and place or the contradictions the task ahead of her must have inspired in her heart and head. The daunting prospect of risking regicide certainly seems to invoke the kind of fear in her that she acknowledges would take a man’s ‘direst cruelty’ to undertake. Calling on a power higher than herself to become something other than a weak and feeble woman, is how she challenges herself to take on the role Macbeth ‘chooses’ for her in his quest to realise his ‘vaulting’ ambitions. That’s his privilege. It is hers to make it happen for him - knowing that a grisly fate for her will be tethered to his if she ‘fails’.
Lady Macbeth could be seen as an abomination: an ambitious woman. However, she could also be seen as a victim of circumstance, like her forbear Eve in the garden of Eden who was essentially ‘framed’ into tricking Adam to eat the apple, conveniently dooming every female to come after her to a life of suspicion and second-class citizenship. ‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t’, she remonstrates with Macbeth when he almost vacillates to the point of hyperventilation. Clear-headed Lady Macbeth doesn’t need to be reminded of what little it takes to move through a world unseen and underestimated. Hiding in plain sight is the perfect cover for a ‘noble cousin’ and the wife at his side of whom society expects the earth, but affords absolutely nothing in return.
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