Female Characters in "Macbeth", "Othello" and "Hamlet"

Content

I Introduction

II The female characters in Macbeth

II.I Lady Macbeth

III The female characters in Othello

III.I Desdemona

IV The female characters in Hamlet

IV.I Gertrude

IV.II Ophelia

V Conclusion

VI Bibliography

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I Introduction

Why should one choose to examine the female characters of three of the most

prominent Shakespeare plays although men are the protagonists in all of them ?

Maybe because one may find certain parallels in the construction of woman

characters in these Shakespeare plays which reflect the Elizabethan image of

women in general. Maybe because Desdemona, Ophelia and Lady Macbeth are rather tragic figures with a developed character.

All main female characters seem to have the same tragic element attached to them –

namely their early unnatural death. Potter sees this early death as an erotic quality

which seems to be inherent in all of Shakespeare’s female characters 1 . All women seem to have loaded guilt upon them prior to their death. Lady Macbeth is guilty of at

least helping in carrying out a murder. Gertrude is guilty of remarrying so quickly after

her husband’s death. But finding guilt in Desdemona and Ophelia seems rather hard

to manage. Desdemona is found guilty by her husband but the audience knows she

is not, while Ophelia may be found guilty by the reader to have betrayed Hamlet by

not requiting his love. Apart from guilt obedience seems to play a major role in the

context of the female characters. Othello wants his wife to be obedient and fears she is not – independent of whether he is present or not – but when he is present he uses

force to make her obedient. Ophelia is also very obedient to her brother and her

father, which constitutes the falsehood of her character and may thus play a major

role in Hamlet’s development. Gertrude is obedient to her husband the way a wife is

supposed to be obedient. She does not have to be reminded and just blindly follows

her husband in her words and deeds until the end of the play. Lady Macbeth may be

an eception, but in the light of the reversal of order in Macbeth we may state that

Macbeth is the obedient figure when he follows his wife’s command. When we

consider Macbeth to be a photonegative of the world we can find the obedience motive again. One may argue that when a lack of obedience persists “chaos is come again” which is exactly the consequence of all acts of disobedience of women in the

three plays. The three witches who are not obedient to anyone, Lady Macbeth and

the consequences of Desdemona’s felt disobedience may serve as an example for

the consequences of female disobedience.

1 Potter, p. 156

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II The female characters in Macbeth

The tragedy of Macbeth lists five female characters in the dramatis personae: Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff, a gentlewoman attending Lady Macbeth, Hecate (who is not

a character after all) and the three witches, who will only be called by numbers from

one to three in the course of the play. The three witches as well as Lady Macduff are

flat characters, but they can still tell us something about the Elizabethan reception of women. Yet Macbeth deals with clear cut phenomena like male/female,

sacramental/diabolic, familiar/alien, living/dead and reverses them in order to

illustrate the state of total chaos 2 , where “nothing is but what is not” 3 . I will only inquire into the character of Lady Macbeth at this point and may refer to the other

characters at a different point.

II.I. Lady Macbeth

“Everything is but what is not” 4 and “Fair is foul and foul is fair” 5 are the two quotes that best characterize the reversal of order in the tragedy of Macbeth. Lady Macbeth fits into this state of disorder as she does not seem to have typical female traits. After having received a letter informing her about the prophecy that would make her

husband king she is without doubt that she has to pour her (evil) spirits into

Macbeth’s ears 6 . Immediately after she is informed that the king is due to arrive she

lays off the last female traits that remain by begging the spirits to “unsex” her 7 . Yet

she does not wish to see the wound her knife makes 8 which might “empower her as a

kind of supe-rmale” 9 . But she has become the “innocent flower” with “the serpent

under it” and recommends her husband to act like that 10 . Unlike Macbeth who rather seems like a henpecked husband she is not only willing to carry out the murder of the

king but does also carry out the planning. As it is symbolized by calling the castle “her

battlements” she is the person in charge 11 . She is able to manipulate Macbeth in

2 Zimmermann, p. 321

3 Macbeth, I.III.142 4 Macbeth, I.III.142 5 Macbeth, I.I.11 6 Macbeth, I.V.1 – I.V.30 7 Macbeth, I.V.41 8 Macbeth, I.V.50 9 Zimmermann, p. 330 10 Macbeth, I.V.65 11 Macbeth, I.V.40

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order to work for her, e.g. she compares Macbeth’s unwillingness to proceed any

further in the plan to kill the king to an unwillingness to love her (“such I account thy

love”) 12 . She also questions Macbeth’s masculinity in all the cases that Macbeth tries to convince her that it is not a good idea to carry out the murder. In her criticism Lady

Macbeth reveals to the audience her rather simple concept of manlihood as that of a

person who acts 13 . At the same time she reveals her evil character that is without love and respect for other people’s lives as she tells us that she would have killed her

own baby while it was feeding if she had sworn to do so 14 . But it turns out that she

cannot kill the king because he resembled her father 15 . After all Lady Macbeth is without remorse after Macbeth had killed Duncan and is convinced that “a little water”

will clear them of the deed 16 . She further advices Macbeth not to think of the deed

anymore as this would only make them mad 17 . How well Lady Macbeth has already digested being part of the murder of the most important person in the Elizabethan

chain of being is nicely symbolized in her reaction to the discovery of Duncan’s

murder: “What in our house ?” 18 . The fainting fit Lady Macbeth has a few scenes later is regarded to be pretended and seems to be rather out of place (the annotations tell

us that this line was probably added later) 19 . Lady Macbeth seems to be a master of disguise in all scenes to come where she continues to tell her husband not to think of

the murder anymore and to be “bright and jovial among [his] guests” 20 .In yet another Banquet scene she keeps calm while her husband is seeing the ghost of Banquo.

She tries to calm everybody down and questions Macbeth’s manhood 21 just like she

had done when Macbeth had wanted to proceed no further in the killing plan 22 . As Macbeth is continually troubled by the apparition of the Banquo’s ghost Lady

Macbeth is only worried about spoiling the feast and thus the bright image of their

reign everybody is supposed to have 23 . “To show with false face what the false heart knows” is so crucial for Lady Macbeth that she sleepwalks washing her hands, yet

discovering stains that may tell of her evil deeds and the smell of murder that cannot

12 Macbeth, I.VII.35 – I.VII.45 13 Dusinberre, p. 284 14 Macbeth, I.VII.55 – I.VII.58 15 Macbeth, II.II.11 16 Macbeth, II.II.66 17 Macbeth, II.II.70; Macbeth, II.II.33 18 Macbeth, II.III.85 19 Macbeth, II.III.117 20 Macbeth, III.II.29; Macbeth III.II.10-13; Macbeth III.II.35 21 Macbeth, III.IV.57 22 Macbeth, I.VII.51 23 Macbeth III.IV.107; Macbeth, III.IV.83, Macbeth III.IV.73

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