Gender |Roles in Macbeth

The first 200 words of this essay...

Female and male can be biological categories, but "womanly" and "manly" express cultural ideas of gender, which may cut across and call in question normative lines of sexual difference. From the first scene, with its bearded witches, to the last, where we hear that a boy died "like a man," the play invokes gendered words, images and metaphors. Characters frequently express their feelings about themselves and others, and give values to those feelings, in gendered terms. To what extent do you agree?

There are a number of differences between the male and female characters within Macbeth; some characters even seem to have a different 'gender' from their 'sex'. 'Sex' is the chromosomes in the human cell that determine the sex. Females have two 'X', chromosomes and males have one 'X' and one 'Y' chromosome. 'Gender' is expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity. It is how people perceive themselves and how they expect others to behave. It is largely culturally determined. The difference between both is not evident, 'sex' refers to the biological category that we are placed into in accordance to the chromosomes we are created with and 'gender' refers to the characteristics and behaviours that different