부권주의와 허구적 여성상: 「맥베스」중심으로

Abstract

Mi-Ae KimThe patriarchal society is based upon the gender/ sex difference. In the patriarchal social system the female is contained by the male. Hence the female is supposed to be either silence itself or a macho woman placing herself in a man's position. Whereas the male is always in the fear of castration and gets more aggressive to assert his manhood. Since gender was a significant way of representing social relations in early modern England, it was natural that contemporary playwrights dramatized unstable gender relations and explored assumptions about women in their plays. The 'witch' stands for an independent adult woman who does not conform to the male idea of proper female behavior. Lady Macbeth is very assertive and has the power of words. In Shakespeare's tragedies of the patriarchal families the women pendulate between the two extremities of a home angel and a weird, ruling out the middle. The Weird Sisters in Macbeth is the long shadow of Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is defeated by the fantasy of manhood in spite of herself. The manly womanhood of Lady Macbeth cannot get over the barrier of her patriarchal society.