Gender Reversal: Macbeth vs Lady Macbeth

In society, there has been a made stereotype for the definition on what i means to be a male of female. This has been around since the beginning of time. The male would be the more masculine one because he would have to go out and hunt for food while the women stayed at home taking care of the children and doing household work. This image of males and females have just moved through the life generation after generation. Now these roles have more elasticity where men are the workers/providers and essentially the strength of the family while women take a more nurturing and caring role. A man's physical strength is portrayed as being strong and brave at the worst of times, yet through Shakespeare'splay it shows the reversal.

Macbeth acts like a female at certain moments in the play. He let the guilt get the best of him about the murder and he listens to his spouse with everything she says while Lady Macbeth does the complete opposite and takes on the role of the man in the relationship. She is the more defiant and devious one and is less emotional when it came things. She even went as far as giving this whole little soliloquy talking about making her tough. “…unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood; Stop up th’access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th’ effect and it." (Act 1 scene 5). She puts her natural femininity and puts it away so she can go through with the devious plan she and her husband had devise. Through that whole scene you can just feel that Macbeth is lingering a sense of power and confidence and needs his wife to give him a talk. After that talk you can see it is his wife that is the strength and ambition behind his character which is usually the other way around. She is the one who pushes him to go through with their plans and it is Macbeth who is backing out instead of his wife. She got rid of her emotions so she would be able to commit these crimes while her husband goes through an emotional break down.