Fair is foul, and foul is fair...

Lady Macbeth, is her name but she is nothing close lady-like. She is capable of plotting a murder and encouraging her husband to carry it out. Her character is one that is cold, and uncharacteristic of any female Shakespeare wrote about. Being a woman isn't necessarily about being soft, mushy, and crying at ease about anything. To be a strong woman, it is sometimes necessary to be tough, rough and bold. Lady Macbeth takes this all to a new level.

 

 

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lady_Macbeth_Cattermole.jpg

"Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top full

Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it!" (1.5.38)

 Lady Macbeth is wife to a Lord but wants him to be king at any cost. She upholds the renaissance expectations put upon in some ways. She is the lady of the house and to that she makes certain the King's stay will be a comfortable one.  However; women typically want to give life, as capable of such a miracle, but Lady Macbeth seems to want none of it. She practically brags about smiling at the baby in her arms while she plucked her nipple from it, depriving it of nourishment. She doesn't stop at just depriving of milk she goes to the extreme of violence against a defenseless child. "and dashed the brains out" not something a sane woman would do - a woman wouldn't hurt her own child...if in fact the child she is referring is her child.

The photo above is a visual contradiction of the role of man and wife in the renaissance. The wife is supposed to be below the husband and lesser than him in every way. In this photo Macbeth appears to have fallen in every sense of the word. Lady Macbeth stand above looking more the part of the regal leader. She is surely a transgressor, going beyond the limits of normalcy. She is as well an outcast, from women, wives and mothers in the ways they should behave as a part of their husband. Her controlling ways in the play are contradictory to the role she should play in society.

Sigh....

William Shakespeare

 "Sigh No More, Ladies..."

(From "Much Ado about Nothing")

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh nor more;

Men were deceivers ever;

One foot in sea and one on shore,

To one thing constant never;

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny;

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into. Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo,

Or dumps so dull and heavy;

The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leavy.

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into. Hey, nonny, nonny.

 

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/shakespeare/sigh_no_more_ladies.html

The above poem is at the beginning of the movie, Emma Thompson recites it to the people. She is sitting in a tree, looking every bit like a woman that hasn’t a care in the world. It is the epitome of a woman that is confident and carefree. She isn't going to conform to what she is supposed to be, she is her own woman and if it makes men not want to deal with her so be it. She would rather not be

BEATRICE

Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy
and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all
that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else
make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please
me.' (46-50) ActII,SceneI

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/much_2_1.html

The duty of a daughter is to honor her father and not ask for a husband that she desires. Hero may want a handsome fellow but it is implied she is to ask her father, how may I please you? Whom should I marry? And she does, she marries Claudio even though he has humiliated her and trashed her name in front of the entire community.

Beatrice's wrath for Hero's reputation

BEATRICE:

"Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath

slandered, scorned, dishonored my kinswoman? Oh, that I

were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take

hands and then, with public accusation, uncovered

slander, unmitigated rancor—O God, that I were a man! I

would eat his heart in the marketplace."(295-300)
ACT IV, Scene 1 (at church)

 

Beatrice wishes she were a man so that she may behave as a man would in defending her cousin Hero. Claudio has dishonored her cousin in such a manner that Beatrice is determined to see him pay. This is not the behavior of an Elizabethan woman...demanding, angry, loud...all of the qualities that would be frowned upon by the men and many of the women around her. She is furious that this man can make such accusations and have no proof to back them up. Claudio is able, because he is a man, to stand by and say nothing and all his comrades do the same. All of the men stand by including Hero's father. Her own father is ashamed of Hero believing this man.  Men were superior to women this proved it.

Hero herself doesn't have the strength to stand up for herself, or she knows that she truly can't. No one would listen to a woman, believe a woman, never! The men including her own father, Leonato have dismissed her as a common whore. There isn't a moment that the words of Claudio are questioned. Hero has been branded a woman unworthy of Claudio, even he didn't question Don John. Why wouldn't Don John be questioned why wouldn't there be more proof needed, because a man said it and therefore it must be so. Sadly Hero's reputation is ruined for the time being. She agrees to marry him because he has repented once she was proved to be true to him. If Hero refused to marry Claudio she may have appeared "unmarriable" going forward, because she had a voice and stood up for herself. This was not Shakespeare's wish, she does as is expected and they live happily ever after.