Essay - Masculinity Heroic Masculinity and the Shakespearean Ideal in His Dramas...

Masculinity

Heroic Masculinity and the Shakespearean Ideal

In his dramas, William Shakespeare advocates a b*****lance between feminine and masculine elements within every human being for the purpose of creating a more ideal society. When an imbalance ***** masculine ***** feminine impulses occurs within ei*****r a society or a powerful individual, dangerous ***** are released and the world becomes potentially chaotic. A sense ***** order is only reinstated and restored when ***** ***** chosen to lead the new society embodies a balance between ***** and masculine virtues, unlike ***** previous leader of the *****d social *****.

In "Macbeth," the militaristic world of Scotl***** is almost entirely absent of normal female influences. Even Lady Macbeth asks ***** be divested of womanly feelings to propel her husband along his ambitious, murderous quest: "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!" (1.5) The Macbeths "have no children" as Macduff later observes, ***** if they are not a *****, functi*****ing reproductive couple—instead their ***** progeny is ***** ambition. However, t***** imbalance within the heroic, masculine ***** ***** Macbeth, once he comes to power, creates a gender ***** in the world he eventu*****lly rules. Besides Lady Macbeth, t***** only other females in the play are either quickly killed (like the only briefly visible ***** Macduff, who is also ***** only woman with a child) or take the form of unnatural be*****gs like the witches and Hecate. The absence of real femininity creates a disruption in the Scottish social order.

Full masculinity and murder are conjoined in the play's ideology, but ***** in a positive way. Lady Macbeth states that for Macbeth to be fully *****, he must be a murderer: "When you durst do it, then you were a man." (I.7) His embodiment of strength ***** mascul*****ity also means that Mac*****th is marginalized by his society after the world shifts ***** peacetime. King Duncan appoints his own son Malcolm to be king of **********, ignoring ***** fact ***** without Macbeth, Duncan would have never been able to hold onto his crown. "We will establish our estate upon/Our eldest, Malcolm." (I.6) Duncan's ********** of the royal bloodline honors ***** feminine virtue of familial loyalty—in contrast Lady Macbeth says she would kill her own ***** ***** her *****, demonstrating that she believes in the need for valor and heroism, ra*****r than loyalty to children. (Later, Lady Macduff will chastise her own husband to her child, because he left her undefended to support Malcolm's quest for the Scottish crown.) When ***** masculine couple of the Macbeths rule, the fate of Scotland ***** in danger.

***** Macbeth becomes *****creasingly hardened ***** his rule, he cannot even feel enough within him to mourn ***** wife's death. "I have ***** forgot the taste of fears;/The time has been, my ********** would have cool'd/To hear a night-shriek...She should ***** died hereafter;" (V.5) Macbeth ***** fully "a man" as ***** Macbeth ***** urged, ***** by becoming so completely and perfectly