Motivation

• Her marginalisation (how she is treated in society) has led to her subsequent persuasion to get her husband to commit regicide

• She gets Macbeth to do it as the only power she has in a patriarchal society is through the man she marries

• Protest against her own lack of power

Act 5, Scene 5

• Her death announced - she dies off stage

• This is a way to punish her for rejecting her gender and asking the supernatural to ‘unsex me here’, and for emasculating Macbeth

• Shakespeare points out her proper, subservient (obeys others) position in society as a woman

• The fact that it happened off stage shows what can happen to women in a patriarchal society

Shakespeare

• Married a woman who was older than him and was his equal

King James

• Was sexist

• Shakespeare tried to not challenge him too much to avoid irritation