Lady Macbeth: Embodies the Renaissance Woman but Perverts the Womanly Ideal

Klein’s premise is that Shakespeare intended the audience to think that, in spite of all Lady Macbeth’s efforts to unsex herself, she is never able to completely separate herself from being a woman. Klein argues that Lady Macbeth embodies in extremity the Renaissance woman and at the same time, she deeply perverts this womanly ideal. The Renaissance woman was regarded as a weaker vessel than men and indeed, Lady Macbeth embodies the frailty of a woman since she is unable to carry out the murder of Duncan. While critics often claim that Lady Macbeth is the evil force behind Macbeth’s unwilling cruelty, she epitomizes the belief that women are passive where men are active. She relies on the strength of her husband to complete a task that she is too timid to complete and while she plans the murder, she leaves the action up to Macbeth. She assumes the role of comforter and helper in a perverted way when convinces Macbeth that they will not fail at murder. Lady Macbeth’s preparations for and clearing up after Duncan’s death reflect a frightening perversion of a Renaissance woman’s domestic activities. When Lady Macbeth hears about Duncan’s death, her faint, whether truthful or fake, is a direct reflection of female weakness. Klein believes that Lady Macbeth is able to mimic male brutality by renouncing God. Her quick dismissal of Macbeth’s inability to say “Amen” as a trifling matter might well suggest her renunciation of religion. Her disregard for religion and lack of faith makes her stray onto a path of sin and it is only later does she experience guilt when her conscious begins to haunt her. Initially, her lack of religion helps her to steel herself for brutality by submerging any concept of right and wrong. Later, her awakened conscious enfeebles her to the point of madness with the ‘awareness of sin.’ Alone and the prisoner of her own mental anguish makes her ignorant of good and the God she long ago renounced. Lady Macbeth wanes as a character from