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Lady Macbeth And Havisham Comparison

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Lady Macbeth And Havisham Comparison
In the 17th - 19th century, the female voice was one of submission, innocence and tenderness. Women before 1918 had no say in the world of politics as they only then gained the ability to vote. Even after, with restrictions of 30 years of age in contrast to men being able to vote at 21 years of age, women did not have a full political voice. Shakespeare and Carol Ann Duffy challenge these expectations of women being submissive and present their women characters as authoritative and devious. In ‘Macbeth’, by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth goes against conventions. Lady Macbeth is a desperate and controlling wife who would do anything to get her husband in to royalty and live a wealthy life. This is similar to ‘Havisham’, written by Carol …show more content…
An example of this within Havisham would be “I stink and remember” which illustrates the female voice’s paralysis from her experiences of the past, causing her to linger to the point of not changing her clothes or washing herself: thus disallowing herself to speak out. This is equally shown in Medusa as she is also paralysed from her past at the level in which she “stared in the mirror”, saying only “love gone bad”. This acceptance of her current appearance reveals that Duffy’s Medusa is heavily conscious of her looks as she ends her relationship with Poseidon on the assumption that her looks were all that the relationship was built on. The quote “but I know you’ll go, betray me, stray from home” implies that she only assumes that her current partner will leave her, demonstrating that she can only see herself as the victim of a crime, the result being her appearance “gone bad
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