Date of Award

Spring 2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Committee Chairperson

Joseph Navitsky, PhD

Committee Member

Eleanor Shevlin, PhD

Committee Member

Cheryl Wanko, PhD

Abstract

The text of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is rife with the language of gender crisis, with the titular character and his wife struggling against the repressive nature of patriarchal gender norms. It is this conflict between individual gender expression and societal ideals of gender that underscores the play’s central conflict, with Lady Macbeth’s rejection of typical femininity as an inciting force for the murder of King Duncan and the chaos that follows. In my reading of Macbeth, I focus on the rhetoric of material sex and gender performativity. In doing so, I examine what such rhetoric suggests about the patriarchal structures governing the world of the text. Specifically, I will discuss Lady Macbeth’s wish to be unsexed, as it reveals how the repressive patriarchal expectations of gender conformity drive her to an extreme rejection of typical feminine behaviors. I also analyze the differing portrayals of material sex and gender performance within the text, specifically the framing of Lady Macbeth and the weird sisters as embodying an “unnatural” femininity that violently disrupts the natural world. I incorporate Jacobean perspectives on reproductive health, birth, and witchcraft in my analysis, as well as a discussion of parallels to Senecan tragedy. In doing so, I argue that Macbeth is one of many tragic dramas depicting acts of violence driven by repressive gender norms.

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