1. This document discusses theories of masculinity and how they are portrayed in Shakespeare's Macbeth. It analyzes the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, noting how they subvert traditional gender norms of the time by exchanging masculine and feminine traits. 2. Freud's psychoanalytic theory is introduced as viewing gender as a social construction rather than fixed, and how it allows for fluidity between concepts of masculinity and femininity. 3. The document concludes that representations of gender in Macbeth are complex and paradoxical, making it difficult to strictly define characters as solely masculine or feminine.

1. Done By
Eesa A. Aljobouri
Supervisor
PROF. MUAYAD JAJO
Karabuk University
2019
MASCULINITY IN MACBETH

2. DEFINING GENDER
Connell’s (1995) critique of sex role and gender socialisation:
• Gender inequalities are explained in terms of biology
• Difference is understood as deviation from the normative mode of masculinity
or femininity
• Gender roles are vague
• Incapable of theorising change in gender relations
• The individual subject is entirely the product of social structure
• Supports the status quo by ignoring power

3. MASCULINITY
• Refers to the social roles, behaviors, and meanings prescribed for men in any given
society at any one time. As such, it emphasizes gender, not biological sex, and the
diversity of identities among different groups of men.
• maleness” varies very little, the roles, behaviors, bodies, and identities that are
thought of as “masculine” vary enormously. This variation allows scholars to argue
that masculinity is socially constructed.
• Masculinity varies historically—what is thought of as masculine changes over time.
• Second, masculinity varies cross-culturally—conceptualizations of masculinity are
culturally specific.
• Third, masculinity varies intra-psychically—what it means to be a man changes over
the course of one’s life. Finally, masculinity varies contextually
• Even within a given society and time period, masculinity can mean different things
to different people

4. FREUD'S THEORY
• Freud's ideas about masculinity developed in three steps.
• The first came in his initial statements of psychoanalytic principles: the idea of
continuity between normal and neurotic mental life, the concepts of repression
and the unconscious,
• And the method that allowed unconscious mental processes to be read
through dreams, jokes, slips of the tongue, and symptoms.
• Freud understood that adult sexuality and gender were not fixed by nature but
were constructed through a long and conflict-ridden process.

5. 1. This quote spoken by Lady Macbeth portrays how she is willing and wanting to
give up her femininity and become a man, all for the sake of the plot against King
Duncan.
2. She directly opposes the common Elizabethan idea that women are nurturers and
givers of life.
3. This quote shows how Lady Macbeth takes on the role of the man, which is
described further on in the play through the interactions with her husband
Macbeth.
“Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me
here” (1.5.40-41).

6. “When you durst do it,
then you were a man;
And to be more than
what you were, you
would Be so much more
the man” (1.7.49-51).
In this quote, Lady Macbeth is
manipulating her husband Macbeth
by speaking of his manhood. She
gains more and more control over
Macbeth as the play goes on.
It shows how Lady Macbeth usurps
Macbeth’s position as the head of the
house and claims it for herself.
By doing this, she is contradicting the
accepted social hierarchy of the
Elizabethan Age which stated that
men were above women in the
household.
Macbeth
Lady
Macbeth

7. In this quote, Lady Macbeth is scolding Macbeth for being afraid and
childlike when he images he hears a voice.
It describes how Macbeth is degrading into the state of a weakling while
Lady Macbeth rises in authority.
The couple has switched roles, defying the normal trends of the day.
“You do unbend your noble strength, to
think so brainsickly of things” (2.2.44-45).

8. • Masculinity and femininity in their social and cultural contexts become
paradoxical notions in Macbeth The obvious contradiction in the
representation of the male and the female
• The mixed and complex signals the play sends about what it means to be
female or male dominate the world of the playmaking it impossible to
distinguish between both.
ARISTOTLE
• Politics is the central activity. Men meet to discuss politics because they have
rationality
• In this presentation , we sought to introduce theories of
masculinity applied with Macbeth Play.

9. • The assumptions made by psychoanalysis liberate gender through the
acknowledgment that femininity and masculinity can co-exist in the same body
• Psychoanalysis adds to the texts because it reads into the mind and thoughts of
the writer and the characters he creates into the unconscious, remains open for
criticism.
• The woman should be given the opportunity to express her own identity as able
and have the right to draw her gender identity.
• Women lack rationality and live on their emotions – they are the other
CONCLUSION

10. Do you know ?
Josephine Haddad, the first Iraqi
woman to pilot a plane 1949

11. • Craib, Ian.Psychoanalysis and Social Theory:New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf,
1989.Print.Favila, Marina. ""Mortal Thoughts" And Magical Thinking In
"Macbeth""Modern Philology(2001): 1. JSTOR. Web. 3 Feb.
2015.http://www.jstor.org/stable/439153
• Smith, Bruce R.Shakespeare and Masculinity. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.
• Connell, R. W., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity
rethinking the concept. Gender & society, 19(6), 829-859.
REFERENCES