Gender and Natural Order of Macbeth

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Originally Posted by TheOnlyOne

We've been recently discussing the gender expectations and natural order ideals of the Elizabethan era as seen in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Although both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth upset gender expectations with an inverse of roles, as well as the natural order through the murder of the king, they also display dominant gender traits.

Also discussed was that of Macduff, who was considered a 'true' Elizabethan. However, he himself left both his wife and children to die when he went to ride with Malcolm, the King's son, to war against Macbeth. How would this be perceived as a dominant masculine trait?

Any thoughts on both the gender expectations and disruption of natural order would be greatly appreciated.

Wow...great question there. To answer your first question, Macduff conforms to the masculine role of exhibiting power on the battlefield. War and fighting, especially under jingoistic circumstances, has often been attributed as a sign of masculinity,as overall power and status is gained from exhibiting physical power against others. Perhaps the initiative for bullying too? I always believed Macbeth, who serves as binary opposition to Macduff, had 2 emasculating traits that brought about his death and caused him to deciet the Elizabethan Great Chain of Being.
1) He killed Duncan to improve his own status, betraying his destined role and destroying another, one of HIGHER status then him even.
2) He let Lady Macbeth dominate and control him and his actions. As the expectated role of a man of any status was to be superior to women, Macbeth fell down a societal rung in terms of his gender role. The contrast of betraying one role by rising above it(becoming king) and betraying another by sinking below(letting himself be inferior to Lady Macbeth) is in itself an even more extreme tragic flaw and cause for death as Macbeth not only disobeys expectations but does it in an inconsistent manner.