‘A Fruitless Crown’: Lady Macbeth, Witchcraft and Maternal Power

‘A Fruitless Crown’: Lady Macbeth, Witchcraft and Maternal Power (Revised version, please grade this draft) Motherhood is powerful in the world of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth is linked to the witches through their deconstruction of gender roles and through images of what Deborah Willis terms “maternal power” (ix). Deconstruction of gender is constantly present in the speech and bodies of both Lady Macbeth and the witches. Reading through a lens of gender and power relations, Lady Macbeth’s lust for power is a response to the oppressive gender roles standardized by patriarchal society in early modern England; her words and actions throughout the play are a means of freeing herself from a constricting gender role. The androgynous three witches are embodiments of this break from gender roles and exist wholly outside of society. In seemingly supernatural instances like her invocation of the spirits and her request to be “unsexed”, Lady Macbeth is constantly linked with the images of perverse maternity consistent with the status of witches in early modern England. Many of Lady Macbeth’s speeches contain images of maternity, nursing and infanticide in order to coerce Macbeth as a tool of her own ambition. These images can be traced back in history to the social role witchcraft had in relation to motherhood. Lady Macbeth’s speech and behavior continually evokes the patriarchal associated with maternity and witchcraft. This makes for an interesting comparison between Lady Macbeth and the witches in relation to society, images of maternal power and gender ambiguity. But Lady Macbeth is never transformed into a real witch with actual supernatural abilities, and thus must face the consequences of her “unsex[ing]” in a social reality. Through her witch-like ability to use her maternal power as a means of manipulating masculine power, Lady Macbeth is able to transcend gender roles and carry out her ambitions; but, in doing so, she is ultimately oppressed by society and takes her own life. Witchcraft held an extremely antagonistic simulacrum in early modern England, especially in relation to maternity and childcare. Diane Purkiss in her book Witch in History outlines a discursive argument about the role of witchcraft in early modern England: Terms like ‘witch’ and ‘witchcraft’ were not single or fixed, but highly unstable terms, sites of conflict and contestation between diverse groups…In villages and towns, witchcraft could become a central signifier in debates about power, employment, norms, values, property rights and land ownership. None of this implies that the supernatural aspects of witchcraft did not matter; they mattered in a variety of ways in different contexts. As the term ‘witch’ traversed these diverse spaces, its own meaning was revised silently or openly rewritten. (93) By applying this shifting definition to Shakespeare’s depiction of Lady Macbeth and witchcraft, the power of motherhood is at the center. In a patriarchal society, the power of women is greatly marginalized in most if not all spheres, but her power in the role of mother is an exception. Deborah Willis’ book Malevolent Nurture further relates the connections between witchcraft and the maternal to the stage. Trials for witchcraft in England began early 1570’s, roughly the same time as the establishment of professional theater. During these years, the basic fears surrounding witches began to develop, and witchcraft came to be seen as a distinctly female crime that was often punished as a "perverse use of maternal power" (ix). In shaping a child’s behavior, life and future, extreme and potentially threatening power is given to the mother. The fact that mothers could control and effect the outcomes of a patriarchal lineage through acts like nursing and infanticide is a social reason why the figure of the witch demonizes women and motherhood to an extreme. Lady Macbeth’s request to the spirits during Act 1 Scene 5 evokes the inherent dangers of motherhood to the patriarchal order common amongst witch lore. This is the first instance she is directly linked to the witches and cosmic spirits, as her invocation is in direct response to hearing the witches’ prophecy. The language she uses almost seems to be a continuation of the witches’ own incanting language. She declares: 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” (1.5.38-48). Lady Macbeth and the witches are further linked through her desire to be “unsex[ed].” The witches’ speeches are full of contradicting paradoxes, but similarly their physical bodies are also paradoxical in relation to gender, as observed by Banquo: "You should be women, / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so" (1.3.42-44). Lady Macbeth mirrors this paradox in her desire to not necessarily embrace a solely masculine identity, but rather to embrace an ambiguous gender, able to draw from both masculine and feminine constructions as the witches do. In response to this connection, Willis provides a key point of distinction in analyzing this scene that I agree with: “But whereas the witches have uncanny magical powers…Lady Macbeth, even after her conjuration speech, seems decidedly down to earth” (222). This difference is important to consider because Lady Macbeth does not have the same supernatural tools as the witches, and thus must realistically manipulate Macbeth’s masculine power through his patriarchal anxiety as a tool for her own ambition. This analysis is also significant in understanding Lady Macbeth’s downfall; while the witches have real supernatural powers, Lady Macbeth still operates in a social reality, one that can and will push back. Willis expands upon the witch-as-malevolent-mother fantasy present in small, communal villages in early modern England: [The witch] is a nurturing mother to her brood of demonic imps but a malevolent antimother to her neighbors and their children…She uses her maternal powers perversely, to enlist the aid of the demonic in bringing sickness and death to households of other mothers, in defiance of her neighborly obligations. (34) For men – especially powerful men of status like Macbeth himself – the continuation of their lineage and family name after death is an ever-present anxiety. This anxiety is extremely heightened in terms of a divine monarch, as his sons will succeed the throne. The anxiety and fear of their lineage being cut off actually empowers mothers through the significant control and effect they have on a child’s fate. The “maternal powers” inherent to femininity provoke this patriarchal anxiety, as women have the agency to corrupt or even end a man’s lineage, leaving no legacy behind after the patriarch’s death. This maternal representation of witchcraft suggests that anxieties about mothers and the influence of the maternal role were ever increasing during period. The witch fantasy can be understood as an embodiment of patriarchal anxiety; by demonizing motherhood, men reestablish the patriarchy and can systematically suppress their anxiety through witch trials and hunts (Willis ix). Taking advantage of this anxiety, Lady Macbeth asserts her maternal power and uses it to channel her ambitions through Macbeth, thus empowering her own ambitions. Nursing and infanticide are of course the main images of maternal power that Lady Macbeth uses to evoke patriarchal anxiety. Following her invocation of the spirits, Lady Macbeth inverts the role of breast-feeding as something that is life giving to something sinister: Come to my woman's breasts And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances, You wait on nature's mischief. (1.5.46-49). The perverse maternal image of breast-feeding she uses as a means of empowerment relate back to witches in early modern England. Purkiss provides a substantial background to understanding how the witch is an inversion of the femininity associated with the nurturing mother: “Food has significance for women because it is a means of nourishing, sustaining and protecting— and therefore controlling— the bodies into which it is instilled. The witch’s food reverses this positive charge; instead of sustaining, it destroys” (108). Lady Macbeth continues to use the language of nursing and nurturing in a perverse, destructive way by directly threatening Macbeth’s lineage. She thus gains power through becoming what Willis terms a witch-like “antimother” (34). Her quest for power culminates in a malevolent image of nurturing contrasted with infanticide: I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I sworn As you have done to this. (1.7.54-59) Here, she shows the full force of her maternal power, calling forth what is perhaps Macbeth’s greatest fear: that because of her, his lineage will not continue. But Lady Macbeth does not necessarily need to sacrifice her femininity in order to gain the power attributed to masculinity. Instead, she draws on Macbeth’s patriarchal anxieties as a means of grasping power considered to be inherently masculine; by doing so, she deconstructs gender roles in terms of power. While she does not literally kill Macbeth's heir, Lady Macbeth's fantasy directly manipulates Macbeth to the murder of Duncan. Although just a fantasy, her words actually manifest: Upon my head they [the witches] placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my grip,  Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand  No son of mine succeeding. (3.1.62-65) She is again connected to the witches, playing her part in Macbeth’s fate and contributing to his demise. Through her perversion of motherhood, it is not just the witches who bestow Macbeth with a “fruitless crown,” but also Lady Macbeth herself. But what does one make of Lady Macbeth’s decent into madness and subsequent suicide when reading the play through links between gender and power? I purpose that once Macbeth does not need her words to coerce him to violence, she is no longer needed as a gender ambiguous figure, and thus has no place in the new order created after Duncan’s murder. Her tragic arc is one of the individual vs. society, and the conventions of socially constructed gender roles are her ultimate demise. In order to survive and escape her destined madness and suicide, she would ideally have to be “re-sexed”: she would have to return to a gendered identity, one inherently feminine. If she were successful in this, she could live out her days as a submissive wife, ignoring any guilt in her association to Duncan’s assassination. But of course, this is not the case for her conscience, and the sleepwalking scene acknowledges her tragic fate: “what’s done cannot be undone” (5.1.66). While on the surface this line pertains to the inability to undo the murder, it also serves as a double meaning in terms of gender. Lady Macbeth has asked to be “unsexed,” and this relinquishment of gender is permanent. She has already made perverse her maternal power to the point of witch-like association, threatened the patriarchy, and is thus unable to reestablish herself as a non-malevolent mother. In continuing a gendered reading of the sleepwalking scene, Lady Macbeth uses more gendered imagery: “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” (5.1.51). Metaphorically, the image of exotic perfume represents her repudiated role of the traditional mother that wishes she could regain. Her hand, while referred to as little, is a representation of her masculine intent and action that served as a tool for her ambitions. She is stuck between these two images; the masculine qualities she manipulated as a means to her ambition is no longer useful, but since her maternal power has been made perverse, she can no longer regain the feminine qualities she previously gave up. The feminine scent of perfume trying to mask the masculine scent of blood is destined to be Lady Macbeth’s permanent state of confliction. The last time Lady Macbeth is mentioned in the play is during Malcolm’s final speech. He describes her as a, “Fiendlike queen, / Who, as ‘tis thought, by self and violent hands / Took off her life” (5.7.99-101). In the eyes of society after her death, she has made the full transformation to a demonized witch because of her gender ambiguity - a fate she originally intended to avoid by channeling her maternal power through her husband. Macbeth is a “dead butcher” (5.7.99), but his wife is a supernatural fiend. Although Macbeth’s murderous attempt to usurp the throne left him vulnerable and ultimately led to his death, his actions were still within the realm of acceptable masculine power. Lady Macbeth’s role in manipulating him to action through maternal power, however, is far outside of socially constructed gender roles in early modern England. The possibility that a woman could use a perverse version of maternal power in order to change her own position is inconceivable to the powerful men around her, and, in order to fathom how she could have acted so far outside of her gender, they must reduce her to this extreme image of the witch. In a similar way, the emergency of the witch fantasy was a result of the very real lineal fears men had towards women as powerful mothers. Lady Macbeth empowers herself and ventures far outside of the conventional gender roles in order to gain control of her own future. She harnesses her maternal power to manipulate the masculine power necessary for usurpation and a change in her marginalized position. However, after relinquishing her ability to fulfill the role of a traditional mother as a means manipulating Macbeth’s masculine power, she cannot return to the status quo, and thus cannot survive in the new order. While Shakespeare presents a female character that moves well beyond gender roles, he also shows that society will not stand idly by and allow this powerful ambiguity to exist. Lady Macbeth’s tragic arc thus calls for a change in society’s construction of gender roles; she eventually takes her own life when this tension between gender, power and society becomes too much for her to bear. By the play’s conclusion, there is no possible way for her to grasp power and not be in conflict with societal convention. Only the real witches of the play world – supernatural creatures not of the earth, who exist outside of an oppressive society – can harness both masculine and feminine power, transcending gender roles. Works Cited Purkiss, Diane. Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations. N.p.: Routledge, 1996. ProQuest UBC. Web. Shakespeare, William, and Nicholas Brooke. Macbeth. Ed. Stanley Wells. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990. Print. Willis, Deborah. Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1995. Print. Alec Leibsohn 44646115 Alec Leibsohn 44646115 9