week 11

One of Shakespeare’s ideas about manliness is the idea of the man fighting for fairness and having the strength to oppose the evil. In the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth often times threaten the social order and shake the stability of the country. The first action which reveals which qualities are manly and which are not is the murder of King Duncan. He was a person who was naturally given the right to rule Scotland because after his assassination it is revealed that “the earth/ Was feverous and did shake” (2.3.60-2.3.61) The nature reacted to this brutal act in order to show how unmanly this action is. The king is Scotland and he represents the whole nation. Killing the leader of a community means ruining the whole community and destroying all social norms. Macbeth interfered with the rules of nature while a real man has the ability to follow the laws dictated by God and the supreme power, because they are relevant to the survival of the whole nation. A man does not have a sick ambition to break the order, as Macbeth does.