3.16 - Gender and Masculinity Quotes
Quote overview table
Different speakers connect manhood and womanhood with courage, cruelty, restraint, and care. These quotations reveal competing expectations and the ways characters use them to influence others.
| Quote | Speaker | Act and scene | Theme(s) | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "unsex me here," | Lady Macbeth | Act 1, Scene 5 | Gender and masculinity, Supernatural | She asks spirits to remove qualities she associates with womanhood. |
| "I dare do all that may become a man. / Who dares do more is none." | Macbeth | Act 1, Scene 7 | Gender and masculinity, Guilt and conscience | He makes moral restraint part of manhood. |
| "When you durst do it, then you were a man;" | Lady Macbeth | Act 1, Scene 7 | Gender and masculinity, Ambition | She makes willingness to murder a test of manhood. |
| "Ay, in the catalogue you go for men," | Macbeth | Act 3, Scene 1 | Gender and masculinity, Corruption of power | He challenges men to prove their worth through killing. |
| "the poor wren, / The most diminutive of birds, will fight, / Her young ones in her nest, against the owl." | Lady Macduff | Act 4, Scene 2 | Gender and masculinity | Maternal protection becomes an example of courage. |
| "But I must also feel it as a man." | Macduff | Act 4, Scene 3 | Gender and masculinity | He insists that grieving belongs alongside fighting back. |
Quote 1 (Act 1, Scene 5)
“Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,”
Lady Macbeth speaks alone in Act 1, Scene 5, after learning that Duncan will visit. She wants the resolve to help bring about his murder.
The command "unsex" asks for the removal of qualities she connects with being female. Her following requests to block remorse and "take my milk for gall" explain what she wants: nurturing feeling replaced by cruelty. Milk suggests feeding a child, while gall is bitter bile.
Motherhood and tenderness belonged to conventional Jacobean ideals of womanhood. Her language rejects those expectations while accepting the association of ruthlessness with masculine strength. The appeal to spirits also shows that she seeks help in achieving this change.
Her request does not establish a completed transformation. In Act 2, Scene 2, Duncan's resemblance to her father prevents her from killing him herself. This later admission reveals an emotional limit to the cruelty she demanded.
Quotes 2 and 3
“I dare do all that may become a man. / Who dares do more is none.”
Macbeth speaks in Act 1, Scene 7, after deciding against Duncan's murder. He is answering Lady Macbeth's accusation of cowardice.
"become" means befit. Macbeth argues that courage needs moral limits: doing more than is honourable would make him less worthy of being called a man. He owes Duncan loyalty and, as his host, protection. His refusal can therefore be read as moral strength.
“When you durst do it, then you were a man;”
Lady Macbeth replies in the same scene. "durst" means dared, and "it" refers to their plan to murder Duncan.
"When" and "then" make his manhood depend on his willingness to kill. She changes the question from whether murder is right to whether he can bear to seem cowardly. This is powerful pressure on a soldier celebrated for bravery. Her forceful direction also challenges the conventional expectation that a wife should obey her husband.
The exchange dramatises two definitions of manhood in direct conflict. Macbeth eventually agrees to proceed, abandoning the moral limit he has just defended.
Quote 4 (Act 3, Scene 1)
“Ay, in the catalogue you go for men,”
Macbeth speaks in Act 3, Scene 1. He has blamed Banquo for the men's misfortunes and questioned their willingness to endure them. The First Murderer answers, "We are men, my liege."
Macbeth's reply treats being listed as a man as insufficient. His following comparison with different breeds of dogs distinguishes a shared name from individual worth. He presents killing Banquo as a chance to prove they are "Not i' th' worst rank of manhood" and to gain royal favour.
The scene repeats Lady Macbeth's tactic in a new relationship. Macbeth now uses shame and the prospect of reward to recruit violence for his own security. Their accounts of anger and desperation explain why his offer appeals to them, without establishing the truth of his accusations against Banquo.
Quote 5 (Act 4, Scene 2)
“the poor wren, / The most diminutive of birds, will fight, / Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.”
Lady Macduff speaks to Ross in Act 4, Scene 2. Her husband has left for England to seek support against Macbeth, and she questions his failure to protect his family.
The contrast in size makes the wren's resistance courageous: even this tiny bird will face a predator for its young. Maternal affection produces the willingness to fight. This offers an alternative to Lady Macbeth's imagined sacrifice of a nursing baby to prove determination.
The image also challenges Macduff's conduct. His political purpose does not remove his family's need for protection. Ross defends his judgement, leaving public duty and responsibility to the household in tension.
Quote 6 (Act 4, Scene 3)
“I shall do so, / But I must also feel it as a man.”
Macduff answers Malcolm in Act 4, Scene 3, after hearing that his family have been murdered. Malcolm has urged him to "Dispute it like a man", meaning fight against his grief.
"I shall do so" accepts action, while "also" insists that feeling belongs beside it. "must" gives grief the force of an obligation. His next words recall how precious his family were to him, explaining why sorrow expresses love rather than a failure of courage.
Macduff challenges the rejection of tenderness heard in Lady Macbeth's speeches. He still wants revenge and later says, "I could play the woman with mine eyes", so he doesn't escape every restrictive expectation. Malcolm, too, both encourages sorrow and urges him to turn it into anger.