The Problem of Gender in Macbeth

Abstract

Among the many phenomena of human life that preoccupied Shakespeare, one was the problem of gender. Shakespeare undoubtedly advanced beyond his era in recognizing the diversity of gender and its associated experiences. His characters often indulged in what has been called “transvestite games.” Scholarship has revealed that these games could also be at times used to see how a man could have erotic feelings for the character dressed as his own gender or one not of their own sex. In his comedies, particularly in As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and The Merchant of Venice (and there are some others too), he seems to initiate debates on how people fall in love in untraditional ways. In As You Like It (1599) and Twelfth Night (1601-02), Orlando and Duke Orsino seem to have been drawn towards Rosalind and Viola, respectively, in their male avatars. Falling in love with them then becomes easy because they have already developed soft corners for these women dressed in men’s attire. In Twelfth Night, Olivia is able to love Sebastian (as no other) only because she has fallen in love with Viola dressed as a young male, and Sebastian is her twin. From these above instances, it is not difficult to see that Shakespeare’s mind was busy experimenting with transgender experiences before he wrote Macbeth (1606). Shakespeare seems to be having serious differences regarding the nature of man as understood traditionally as well as the nature of woman understood similarly. This paper is largely about the ambivalent status of the male and female genders in Shakespeare’s mind when he wrote Macbeth.