Unmasking Shakespeare’s Tragically Evil Queens, Part I: Femininity, Ferocity, and the Facade of Masculine Power

Greetings, wandering soul! The Ink-stained Archivist invites you into the Library of the Lost—where, for each lost soul, a story might be found. 

These days, I find myself preoccupied with the Bard of Avon’s depiction of women—his villainesses, to be precise. Their descents into wickedness, it strikes me, is contingent upon societal circumstances—most notably, I daresay, patriarchal institutions that serve neither man nor woman. Allow me to elaborate, dear wanderer. 

The Queens’ Corruption in Context
The two most notorious female villains of William Shakespeare’s tragedies—Macbeth’s Lady Macbeth and Titus Andronicus’ Tamora—have horrified and scandalized audiences for generations with their heinous misdeeds. However, it is imprudent to render judgment on these two villainesses’ actions—either to condemn or to condone them—without first considering the context provided by the societal circumstances impacting these women. Like their real-world female contemporaries, these two fictional women were bound by the constraints forced upon their gender by a male-dominated society—and, therefore, were the unfortunate products of the patriarchal frameworks in which they toiled. Tamora’s and Lady Macbeth’s relationships with their male partners and children, their acceptance or rejection of the roles assigned to them by society, and their proximity to power inform their descents into wickedness. These villainesses devolve into villainy as a consequence of their diverse experiences as women forced to function within patriarchal societies.

Seduction as Subversive Strategy 

Tamora’s embrace of her own femininity as a tool for pursuing revenge juxtaposes Lady Macbeth’s denunciation of femininity as an obstacle to her unwomanly ambitions for sociopolitical power. In contrast to the rougher traits often associated with the masculine archetype, to be feminine in Elizabethan England was “to be gentle, fearful, pitying, wavering, and soft” (Kimbrough 177). Implied to be a vision of queenly grace and seductive beauty, whose actions throughout the text portray her as a dutiful, doting mother and wife, Tamora outwardly embodies those roles which are praised as inherently feminine. Her desperate “mother’s tears,” shed before an unmoved Titus Andronicus “in passion for her son” Alarbus (Tit. 1.1.103), who will be sacrificed to appease the restless ghosts of Titus’ dead sons, stir within her observers—both onstage and within the audience—a blossoming sympathy and outrage. This was, no doubt, Tamora’s intention: for her public display of unbridled, shameless despair and maternal devotion to convince those male observers who hold more influence within Rome to intervene on behalf of a weeping, piteous, and fundamentally feminine mother.  Salvation for Tamora’s Gothic family, in the form of an imperial union, arrives too late to save Alarbus from his fate. For herself and her remaining two sons, however, Tamora’s marriage to the Roman Emperor Saturninus—earned through Tamora’s abundant womanly wiles—assures them access to those upon whom they seek to enact revenge. Encouraged by Tamora’s enticement to serve Saturninus as “a handmaid be to his desires” (Tit. 1.1.341), Saturninus weds her without delay, Tamora’s promise to uphold her feminine duty as a “loving nurse, a mother to his youth,” still strong in his mind (Tit. 1.1.342). In the feminine realms of seduction and maternity, Tamora presents herself as an attractive, capable partner to a man as powerful and respected as Rome’s Emperor, embracing her societally assigned feminine roles as a means to her own ends. 

Forsaking Femininity

Lady Macbeth, in contrast, reviles and eschews femininity as counterproductive to her lust for power. Her determination to abjure feminine “compunctious visitings of nature” (Mac. 1.5.50) and instead embody a masculine guise of “direst cruelty” (Mac. 1.5.48) in her pursuit of the Scottish throne requires Lady Macbeth to suppress within herself the feminine ideals society has assured her are innate to her gender (Biswas et al. 2708). In doing so, Lady Macbeth implies that femininity and the female gender are antithetical to a desire for violent murder and ruthless ambition (Martin 20), an opinion that inspires her to renounce its influence upon her. While Tamora epitomizes that which is deemed feminine by her society, as illustrated by her effectiveness as a doting mother and alluring seductress, Lady Macbeth rejects femininity altogether in adherence with her belief that suppressing her innate womanhood is crucial to achieving her unwomanly ambitions. 

Moral Decay and Masculine Dominance

At various instances throughout their plays, Lady Macbeth and Tamora each adopt traditionally masculine traits in order to secure their individual goals within patriarchal societies that frequently undervalue and underestimate the abilities and desires of women. Generally, Shakespeare’s myriad works, as products of Elizabethan sensibilities, equate masculinity with aggression, violence, bravery, daring, and strength (Kimbrough 177), which exist in balance with its softer, subtler counterpart, femininity. In her famous “unisex me” speech, Lady Macbeth rejects the docile, nurturing role of mother assigned to her, eschews feminine compassion and remorse, and welcomes in “direst cruelty” to consume her as she pursues her ambitions (Mac. 1.5.52–64). Patriarchal societies would have women believe that “weakness has always been associated with the female” (Biswas et al. 2708), and because of her inherited loathing of this alleged fault, Lady Macbeth struggles to vanquish all aspects of herself that resemble flawed femininity. By striving to embody her warped definition of masculinity as fearless, cruel, and courageous (Kimbrough 182), Lady Macbeth alienates and stifles her innately feminine disposition, her connection to empathy and contrition, and her humanity in favor of ill-gotten power. 

Retribution and Ruination

Tamora, though seemingly more feminine than Lady Macbeth, briefly exhibits masculine traits in response to blatant threats to her security. Previously portrayed by the narrative as the paragon of devoted mother and beautiful seductress, Tamora intermittently emerges as a savage avenger of her lost son and determined protector of her Gothic allies’ fortunes within enemy Rome. Taunting innuendos flung at her by Lavinia, and Bassianus’ promise to expose her affair with Aaron to her husband, the emperor, summoned forth from Tamora a brutal, violent rage—an emotion Shakespeare’s fictional societies traditionally attributed to masculine figures. The proceeding diabolical plot to murder Bassianus and viciously assault Lavinia, orchestrated by Aaron and executed by Tamora and her two sons, reveals Tamora to be an eager, impassioned participant in vengeful violence (Tit. 2.3). The pursuit of revenge against Titus’ daughter Lavinia through violent means is an unequivocally masculine endeavor (Kimbrough). Her adamant determination to dirty her own hands with Lavinia’s lifeblood while repairing the damage she wrought upon her own reputation via her adulterous affair with Aaron—and the danger this indirectly posed to her sons’ safety within Rome—illustrates her adoption of masculine aggression and violence. To right with her “mother’s hand” (Tit. 2.3.125) the wrong she committed, Tamora must embrace that which is antithetical to her innate nature. Indeed, for either of these women to succeed in their individual male-dominated societies, they must alternately exploit and reject their own genders—deliberate actions that propel their descents toward wanton immorality. Thus, Shakespeare’s most infamously wicked queens are not merely evil by nature but tragic products of the gendered performances demanded of them to ensure their own survival in sociopolitical realms plagued by patriarchal dominance.     

Please forgive me, wanderer. The hour, it appears, has slipped away like a thief in the night. You have earned a moment of respite. I shall leave you—for now, at least. But do return momentarily for the provocative conclusion of our exploration of Shakespeare’s tragic villainesses.  

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Your Ink-stained Archivist bids you farewell. 

Works Cited 

Biswas, Prarthita, et al. “Portrayal Of Gender Dynamics In Shakespeare’s Macbeth.” Journal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results, vol 14, no. 2, 2023, pp. 2706–2711, DOI: 10.47750/pnr.2023.14.S02.317. 

Kimbrough, Robert. “Macbeth: The Prisoner of Gender.” Shakespeare Studies, vol. 16, Rosemont Publishing and Printing, Jan 1, 1983, pp. 176–190. EBSCO.

Martin, Aubrey. Bad Women and “a Spirit to Resist”: The Archetypes of Female Villainy in Shakespearean Drama. Apr 5, 2024. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Honors Thesis. DOI: 10.17615/sfxe-r658.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. HarperPerennial Classics, Dec 16, 2014. 

Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. HarperPerennial Classics, Dec 16, 2014. 

Sharif Talukder, Ahmed. “The Dominance Of Lady Macbeth On Macbeth’s Collapse In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, A Discussion.” Journal of Namibian Studies: History Politics Culture, vol. 35, no. 1, Aug 10, 2023, pp. 1668–1676. DOI: 10.59670/jns.v35i.3830. 

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. “Lady Macbeth and Feminist Literature.” Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature, 2nd ed., Facts On File, 2013. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=99121&itemid=WE54&articleId=42763.  

Willis, Deborah. “‘The gnawing vulture’: Revenge, Trauma Theory, and Titus Andronicus.” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 1, Oxford UP, Apr 1, 2002, pp. 21–52. JSTOR, DOI: 10.1353/shq.2002.0017.