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The title of my essay is 'Lady Macbeth is a character with many strengths and weaknesses.' Is she typical of the women of her era? How does she...

I would say Lady Macbeth is not typical of the women of her era, as most would not encourage their husbands to murder as a means to career advancement. She is more ruthlessly ambitious than most. Most men and women in the Renaissance would be especially reluctant to murder a king, God's anointed ruler. That being said, Lady Macbeth is typical of the women of her era and reflects the time the play was written in several ways. First, she is dependent on her husband for status. She cannot build a career or move up the ladder on her own: she advances in rank and prestige only as her husband does. So she does have every incentive to push his career forward. Related to this, she takes on the typical female role of supporter of her husband, while he is the main actor. She may help to devise a plot to murder Duncan, and provide words of strong and harsh encouragement, but like most women of the era, she expects her husband to do the main deed. 


Lady Macbeth has also internalized the stereotyped gender roles of her time and perceives womanhood, which is typically associated with kindness and mercy, as a weakness. She feels she must "unsex" herself and turn the nurturing milk in her breasts (a symbol of a woman's compassion) into "bitter gall" in order to steel herself to push her husband to murder. 

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