『맥베스』에 나타난 남성정체성과 모성환상

Abstract

This essay aims to explore the maternal fantasies which Macbeth depends on for the construction of his masculinity. The patriarchal male subject constitutes his masculinity in relation to a fantasized pre-oedipal maternal. Like most male subjects Macbeth also constructs his masculinity, going through the fantasy of escape from maternal matrix into patriarchal hierarchy. Witches’ prophecy, “None of woman born / shall harm Macbeth”makes Macbeth keep internalizing his psychological fantasy. In the battle of Macdonwald and Macbeth, Macbeth fights with Macdonwald allied with the tainting female, the whore Fortune in his fantasy so that he sustains masculinity. Macbeth manages in the fantasy of self-birth his own caesarian section, caving his passage out from Macdonwald, the imaginary female to achieve heroic male action. The destructive maternal fantasy and the fantasy of escape are also represented in the murder of Duncan and the encouragement of Lady Macbeth inducing the murder. Macbeth creates defensive fantasy, projecting the image of infantile vulnerability and maternal into Duncan. In addition, Macbeth projects the mother to infants sharing her hardness, born without vulnerability into Lady Macbeth then reconstitutes himself as the invulnerable male child of such a mother. However hard he tries to keep the fantasy, he is to fall into the dilemma that he can’t avoid the power of the man not born of woman, who is Macduff born by caesarian section. In conclusion, at the beginning, it seems that Macbeth becomes the bearer of the shared fantasy that secure male community depends on the prowess of the man not born of woman, the man who can carve his own passage out. But, at the end of the play, his death disproves that the masculinity is the mark of exemption from maternal origin and the vulnerability that are its consequence metaphorically.