SUSPICION OF THE UNDECIDABLE

Gender ambiguity in Shakespeare′s

Macbeth

Probably the most powerful lines lingering in the reader′s or audience′s memory after

experiencing

Macbeth

are the hero′s words in reaction to the news of the death of his spouse:

"Out, out, brief candle!

Life′s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing." (V, 5, 23-28)

When life signifies nothing, does this play signify anything? However simple the question

may seem, the answer is hardly straightforward. Trying to stay away from moralising about

vaulting ambition that doesn′t pay in the end I would like to speculate about possible

significations of the play, not necessarily connected to the plot, or to put it in another way,

examine the possibly significant themes and motives recurrent in the play: ambiguity,

uncertainty or indeterminacy of meaning.

Equivocation

is the term used in the play itself (e.g.

the porter scene in III, i) and it well captures the theme of walking the tightrope above the

abyss of single, definite meaning on one hand, and the endless proliferation of meaning on the

other. One cannot escape the impression that the thematically prominent characters of the

play (Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, the witches, the Porter) virtually evade committing themselves

to definite meanings.

Here I have reached the point where it is appropriate to try and define the undefinable, namely

to suggest my understanding of ambiguity and how it works in the play. Ambiguity is

manifest either overtly in the lines of the characters, who may or may not be conscious of the

double meaning of the words they are using, or it can be inherent in the text and not confined

to a particular utterance of a character. Before examining these two aspects separately, let us

look at the issue of ambiguity itself in more detail, as it comes to the fore in the play. Let us

take, rather arbitrarily, perhaps, the term

equivocation

as a common denominator for

phenomena like ambiguity, uncertainty, indeterminacy or undecidability, irony and dramatic

irony could be included here as well for the purpose of argument. Subject to equivocation are

the key issues like gender, identity, personal integrity. To proceed further from this point, we

could start with the antitheses, the very antagonism of which is under sustained scrutiny.

As Marjorie Garber in her study

Shakespeare′s Ghost Writers

argues with much persuasion,

Macbeth

is about "transgression and dislocation".1 Without much effort, a paradigm of border

crossings could be put together as follows:

male - female

single - double

life - death

sleep - waking

natural - supernatural

existence - non-existence

think - speak

reality - play

visible - invisible

material - immaterial

knowledge - conjecture

This list could be continued almost

ad libitum

but the qualities listed above may suffice as an

illustration. For the purpose of this essay I would like to focus on the few issues mentioned

above (gender identity, personal identity and integrity) as well as some related themes

concerned with the dichotomy "natural - unnatural".

Let us start with perhaps the most conspicuous and most intriguing of these antitheses,

namely with the gender division male/female. It is a persistent theme in the play, broached in

the very beginning with the appearance of the three weird sisters on the heath. Banquo in his

lines (I, 3, 38-46) comments on their androgynous nature by not being able to decide whether

they are women or not. Note that Banquo is not in the least surprised by the witches′

appearance and their supernatural capacities like foretelling the future do not puzzle him at

all. He takes such creatures for granted, since their image is firmly wedged in the popular

consciousness. But their bearded countenance runs against ingrained notions according to

which witches should be of female sex. The gender indeterminacy is thus established, to be

reinforced shortly by Lady Macbeth′s desire to be "unsexed" (I, 5, 39). It is significant that

she does not express the wish to be free of the constraints of her existence as a woman; the

verb suggests that not only is she discontented with her being a woman, but she apparently

does not regard manhood/male existence as the desired alternative. This may be so because

she finds her husband deficient in virile qualities like courage and valour. But on the other

hand she seems to think highly of what she defines as manly behaviour when she constantly

instigates her husband and tells him what to do so that he would be a real man. She seems to

cherish an ideal/idealised picture of manhood; that she is in quest of some such archetypal

1 Marjorie Garber:

Shakespeare′s Ghost Writers

, New York: Methuen 1987, p. 91.

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image could be surmised from her reluctance to kill the groom because he had resembled her

father. Her exclamation "My husband!" (II, 2, 12) which follows immediately only stresses

the affinity these two figures have for Lady Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth′s desire to be unsexed as well as the pattern of her behaviour throughout the

play indicate that she does not strive to emulate the male. For her, neither sex can aspire to the

highest (humane?) goals, whatever these may be. Terry Eagleton in his book

William

Shakespeare

suggests that Lady Macbeth strives to escape from singular identity, since she

perceives singleness as inadequate.2 This highly interesting observation leaves us with the

question whether her want is to be divested of the bonds of gender in order to fulfil some

human potential or whether humanity is to be discarded altogether so that a higher, more

perfect form of existence can be achieved. The answer, if provided at all, is again by no

means straightforward. Whatever Lady Macbeth′s concerns may be, she is not unduly worried

about traditional humane ideals. The way she encourages Macbeth to live up to the witches′

predictions indicates that being a man is the desired state she wishes for her husband (at least)

to attain.

"When you durst do it, then you were a man;

And to be more than what you were, you would

Be so much more the man" (I, 7, 49)

Macbeth feels compelled to prove his manliness to his wife and boasts:

"I can do all that may become a man;

Who dares do more is none" (I, 7, 47-48)

However, for the Macbeth couple, the concept of manhood seems to oscillate between the

masculine and the human aspects of the word. Macbeth takes up the matter of manhood and

becomes preoccupied with the idea of being a man. Just what he and Lady Macbeth have

precisely in mind when they use this word is something to speculate about. The question

remains, however, whether either Macbeth or Lady Macbeth or both of them are aware of this

oscillation and whether they mean the same thing at the same time. Though we have no

access to the mind of either character, it can be surmised from the context that in the lines

mentioned above Lady Macbeth associates manhood with courage or even violence. Her

words appeal to Macbeth′s virility while they seem to suggest manhood has no limits, as it

were. In contrast, Macbeth displays an awareness of the limits of manhood (masculinity?);

transgressing these boundaries means to cease to be human. But such an interpretation of

2 Terry Eagleton,

William Shakespeare,

Oxford:

Blackwell, 1986, pp. 1-8.

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