Women’s discourse of power in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Scientific Essay from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: M.A, course: Discourse Analysis, language: English, abstract: Women in Macbeth (i.e., Lady Macbeth and the Witches) speak a strange language that is very similar to what women seek today. This language can be described as antilanguage: a language by which women can direct, control, and dominate men. This paper introduces a contradictory statement to the current views in discourse analysis, which indicate that women are powerless, trivial, dominated, and sexual objects (Andersen, 1988, Chaika, 1982; Lakoff, 1975) by showing women as powerful, serious, and dominating as men. In doing so, it focuses on the recent views of discourse, power, and women, taking Shakespeare’s Macbeth as a field of application by analyzing Lady Macbeth’s turns of talk.