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Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacau, Romania
ISSN: 2065-3204
English Francais Romana
en MASKING MASCULINITY: LADY MACBETH AND POWER
  • Bălinișteanu-Furdu,  Cătălina
    “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacău
Abstract

The paper deals with some of the women’s roles in William Shakespeare’s plays: a woman’s relation to power and to the man in her life. For many centuries, the female characters have all been represented as marginal and excluded figures because of their position in society. In this paper, we offer an anthropological approach to the female protagonist in The Tragedy of Macbeth, considering the context of the society presented in the play, emphasizing the woman’s supposed role for the preservation of peace, thus ensuring the man’s comfort and security at home – an oasis in the warrior society of those times. We will present the woman’s roles in The Tragedy of Macbeth within the story itself and within the society presented in the play. Our analysis investigates this woman’s relation with femininity and masculinity either challenging her husband’s masculinity or rejecting her own femininity.

Abstract

L’article s’attache à déceler quelques facettes du discours du pouvoir saisi dans La tragédie de Macbeth, écrit qui met en scène un personnage vu d’une perspective anthropologique. Comme l’action de la pièce de William Shakespeare se passe au XIe siècle, on s’assigne à décrire Lady Macbeth comme une femme qui défie les conventions et les valeurs culturelles du Moyen Age, mais, en même temps, comme un personnage qui repousse sa féminité et envie le pouvoir que les hommes possèdent.