Feminist Reading in Macbeth

In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, he presents the conflicting character of Lady Macbeth. Upon receiving her husband’s letter about the witches’ prophesies, she attempts to be like a man in order to exude the strength needed to gain additional social status as royalty. Lady Macbeth appears to be very influential in planning – deciding when and how they should kill King Duncan – and chiding her husband for not acting more like a man; yet, despite these capabilities, she is the main reason for the revealing of the Macbeth’s part in the usurpation of the throne. First shown as an iron-willed character willing to “[pluck] my nipple from [my child’s] boneless gums, And [dash] the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this” to later being shown as possessed by nightmares of guilt (I. vii), how could such a strong character so quickly fall prey to uneasiness? According to materialist feminism theory, despite her earlier show of strength, Lady Macbeth’s eventual weakness is a result of a patriarchal portrayal of her gender.
A popular speculation on why the oppression of women is not more commonly recognized than the oppression of certain ethnic or religious groups, is that “women’s allegiance to men from their own [background] always supersedes their allegiance to women from different classes” (Tyson 97). While certain social and economic factors separate people from different walks of life, within these groups women are also separated from each other. Women remain isolated which prevents them from making significant changes because they have no strength in size. Similarly, Lady Macbeth, while being notably strong compared to other members of her gender, has no way to enact her schemes as she is kept isolated from other women during the course of the play. While her strength is great, she is not powerful enough alone to deal with a murder. She does not reveal the secret of their murderous deeds because she is a woman and thus inherently weak, but she reveals the...