Macbeth Gender Quotes Page 1

Banquo's confusion about the witches' gender is pretty striking and speaks to the play's notion that the witches are "too masculine" to be women. (In 17th century England, the ideal woman was silent, obedient, chaste, beautiful, and submissive, etc. and the weird sisters are none of these things.) Like Lady Macbeth, who taunts her husband into killing Duncan by questioning his manhood, the witches are menacing figures that trigger Macbeth's murderous ambition, which brings about his ruin. Remember, it's their prophecy that leads Macbeth to first consider killing Duncan in order to secure his, Macbeth's, power. (On the other hand, we might also remember that the play goes out of its way to show that Macbeth makes his own decisions. The witches never say anything about murder – they just tell Macbeth he's going to become king.)

Here, the First Witch describes how she's going to punish a sailor's wife (who refused to share some of her chestnuts) by whipping up a nasty little storm so the sailor's ship, currently at sea, will be "tempest-tost." What's more, she says she's going to "drain [the sailor] dry as hay," which means that she's going to make the sailor impotent (so he can't have children). Fear of male impotency is something that surfaces in the play over and over again. (Even the Porter jokes about it in Act II, scene iii.) Most notably, Lady Macbeth, who is often aligned with the witches, implies that her husband is unable to perform sexually (see 1.7.3 below) when he refuses to kill Duncan.

According to Lady Macbeth, her husband is ambitious, but he is also too "kind" to do what it takes to murder Duncan so that he, Macbeth, can be king. What's a wife to do? Lady Macbeth plans to "chastise" Macbeth with the "valour of [her] tongue," which is another way of saying she's going to browbeat her husband into taking action so he can be "crown'd withal." This speech establishes Lady Macbeth as the dominant partner in the relationship, which inverts typical 17th century gender and social roles. (Husbands were supposed to "rule" their wives in the same way that kings ruled countries.)