Complicating Logics of Gender in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Twelfth Night-1

“A natural perspective, that is and that is not!” Complicating Logics of Gender in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Twelfth Night Abstract In the social terrain of early modern England, a rigid hierarchy separated men from women. However, alongside this two-gender system was a Galenic one-sex model of the human body that presided in the period’s medical discourse, which represented sexual difference as a continuum rather than a binary. As I discuss in Chapter One, an examination of the metaphors surrounding bodily fluids in Macbeth reveals a tension between these two ideas of gender. A similar tension can be found in Twelfth Night: Viola’s cross-dressing and the paths of desire depicted in the play simultaneously present and challenge patriarchal, heteronormative logic. Ultimately, this work pays off by contributing to the post-structuralist project of confronting problematic norms. In America today, those fighting for equal treatment on the bases of gender and sexuality struggle to reconcile the demands of an identitarian political system with the nuanced, ever-changing nature of human reality. In order to effectively challenge oppressive paradigms, post-structuralist movements need new models for thinking about facets of the human experience. Marjorie Garber addresses this need by presenting the three-dimensional model of the Möbius strip to represent sexuality. I conclude my thesis with a discussion of how Shakespeare’s imagery and the dynamic between the one-sex and two-gender systems of his time provide useful analogies to Garber’s Möbius strip. Key words: gender, androgyny, post-structuralism, queer studies, bisexuality, one-sex model, cross-dressing CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One: The Androgynous Fluids of Macbeth 7 Chapter Two: Elusive Objects of Desire in Twelfth Night 21 Chapter Three: Adding a Twist 33 Conclusion 41 Works Consulted 43 Introduction “…it is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly… [s]ome collaboration has to take place in the mind before the act of creation can be accomplished…. …Shakespeare was androgynous…” –Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own A Room of One’s Own traces the musings of fictional Mary Seton, a woman determined to find truth about the history of Women and Fiction. Sifting through shelves in the library, she finds book after book written by men accounting for women’s banality and inferiority. In response, she develops an argument that asserts that women must celebrate their differences from men, a stance that forms the basis of many feminist movements. 1 But by the end of her saga Mary concludes that every person’s mind has manly and womanly aspects in it, and that in order to create a truly great piece of writing one must allow these parts to collaborate, achieving what she describes as an androgynous “unity of mind” (101). Many of the characters in Shakespeare’s work reflect the androgyny that Woolf celebrates at the end of A Room. He depicts male characters who are indeed man-womanly, and through the recurring motif of the cross-dressed female character he alludes to a mixing of masculine and feminine aspects. These characters complicate the two-gender logic that governs the worlds of his plays and structured the society in which he lived. Associating men with reason and strength and women with weakness and emotional flightiness, the social order of early 1 For further discussion of the relationship between a theory of androgyny and feminist movements, see Vice Versa, 214-8. modern England relegated men and women to separate social spheres and asserted that men must protect and contain the subordinate group. 2 Interestingly, alongside this logic of separation was a Galenic one-sex model based on a humoral understanding of the human body that presided in the medical discourse of early modern England. According to this model, every body carries a unique combination of four humors— black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm—and the balance of these humors yields an individual’s temperament and sexual makeup. Hotter, drier humors dominate in men, pushing their sexual organs outside of their bodies and yielding their rational, assertive dispositions. In contrast, women’s bodies contain cooler, wetter humoral balances that lead to internal reproductive organs and lustful, mercurial propensities. 3 While the one-sex model of the body reflected patriarchal thought in that it viewed the male body as standard and the female body as an imperfect or incomplete version, it ideologically challenged two-gender logic by destabilizing the line separating men from women. According to Galenic theory, sexual difference is a continuum rather than a binary, and an equal balance of male and female elements produces a hermaphroditic body that does not correspond to either gender category. Additionally, this theory saw bodies as fluid and changeable, holding that boys pass through “effeminate” stages during adolescence before reaching their final sexes and corresponding genders (Greenblatt 78). These beliefs contributed to masculine anxiety: in order to maintain their status in the patriarchal social and political structures, men had to continuously assert their maleness while suppressing their female impulses (Foyster 55). 2 See Howard, 418-429, and Foyster, especially chapter 1, for discussions of this two-gender system. 3 See Laqueur for a detailed discussion of the one-sex model. In the first two chapters of this thesis, I explore how Shakespeare’s plays reflect the tension between a strict two-gender logic and the fluid one-sex model. A close reading of Macbeth reveals how this tension is produced through the two conflicting constructions of manhood depicted in the play. The political order of Macbeth is centered on a masculine warrior culture that encourages men to shed blood in order to rise up in society’s ranks. This system constructs manhood in gendered terms, as it repeatedly contrasts masculine strength with feminine weakness. However, the language of the play simultaneously evokes a second idea of manhood that harmonizes with a notion of humanity as a whole and undermines the two-gender logic of the play. Twelfth Night, a festive comedy that revolves around sexual attraction and desire, similarly reflects two contrasting logics of gender. While the play’s heteronormative setup and resolution uphold a traditional, two-gender logic, Orsino and Olivia’s paths of desire—in particular, their shared attraction to the ambiguously sexed Cesario—suggest that sexuality does not conform to two-gender norms. The interplay of gender logics that Shakespeare presents in Twelfth Night and Macbeth can facilitate ongoing discussions about gender and sexuality in America. Despite many ideological changes that have occurred between the early modern era and today, there are similarities between the time periods that endow them with the ability to illuminate aspects of each other. 4 Most profound is the struggle between hegemonic ordering systems that relentlessly work to separate and define and undercurrents that defy and resist such categorization. This tension was particularly heightened in early modern England, as social, economic, and scientific 4 One of these changes is the eighteenth century shift from a Galenic one-sex model of the body to the modern two-sex model. See Laqueur, chapter 1. developments undermined traditional structures of order, forcing people to reconsider the beliefs that they previously took for granted. 5 The changes that people lived through in early modern England are analogous to ongoing developments in America. During the twentieth century, political and intellectual movements challenged the binary logic central to patriarchal thought. Early feminists worked to elevate the political and social statuses of women by challenging the belief that women are inferior to men, and their progress fueled post-structuralist movements such as queer theory and radical feminism, which confronted the logic of gender difference altogether. In spite of much progress, contrasting motives and ideological disagreements have repeatedly hindered feminists and LGBT activists in their projects of undermining normativity. One central point of contention is the negotiation between identity politics—the struggle of groups to be recognized and validated by society—and the rarely acknowledged reality that humans will always defy classification. New models for thinking about facets of the human experience—specifically gender and sexuality—are vital for progressive movements to advance in the fight against oppressive norms. Marjorie Garber addresses this need by presenting the Möbius strip as a model for thinking about bisexuality, which embodies a conception of space that “incorporates the concepts of ‘one,’ ‘two’ and ‘three’ (two apparent “sides,” illusionistically; one continuous surface, and a third dimension in space)” (Vice Versa 30). Deftly mobilizing and rounding out two-dimensional models of sexuality, such as the homo-/hetero- binary and the Kinsey scale, the Möbius strip demonstrates the multiple, ever-changing nature of desire. I propose that a model like this can be used to represent the whole of human sexuality as well as other components of human identity, 5 For a discussion of some of these developments, see Mullaney’s preface. and can help pave the way towards a liberation from the bounds of hegemonic paradigms. I conclude my thesis with a discussion as to how the imagery in Shakespeare’s plays and the dynamic between the one-sex and two-gender systems of early modern England contribute usefully to this project. Chapter 1: The Androgynous Fluids of Macbeth In the first act of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth accuses her husband of weakness and cowardice when he goes back on his intent to murder the king. In response to her biting words, Macbeth exclaims, “Prithee, Peace. / I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none” (1.7.45–7). 6 Asserting that his unwillingness to kill for power does not compromise his masculinity, Macbeth declares that if he were to exceed the bounds of social duty he would not gain status but rather lose his humanity and be rendered “none.” This scene presents a tension between two different ideas about what constitutes a man, which, as Jarold Ramsey notes, correspond to two “concentric fields of significance: a code of manliness, the special virtues of the male gender… and… an ethos based on what best distinguishes the race itself, irrespective of gender” (286). While the former perspective is preoccupied with the social differences between men and women, the latter looks beyond these differences to the constituent aspects of humanity as a whole. Our first glimpse into Macbeth depicts a political system that is centered on manly strength and violence. The play opens to a conversation between soldiers on a battlefield, in which a captain describes to the king how Macbeth, …with his brandished steel Which smoked with bloody execution, Like valour's minion Carved out his passage… [and]… 6 All of my citations of Shakespeare’s plays are from the Norton Anthology, 2nd ed. …unseamed [the rebel Macdonald] from the nave to th’ chops And fixed his head upon our battlements. (1.2.17–23) This report is vivid with violent imagery. Macbeth’s sword, which is steaming with his victim’s blood, enables him to “[carve] out his passage” and “[unseam]” his enemy. Evoking a violent sexual encounter, this language conflates the battlefield with the body of Macdonald and suggests that Macbeth is not only slicing open, but also entering and making his way through his enemy’s body. In addition to contrasting the active, impenetrable Macbeth with his enemy, who is being penetrated and acted upon, this language suggests a disruption of boundaries, as that which ought to be outside Macdonald’s body—Macbeth—has entered it. This masculine violence is continued when, in response to the “fresh assault” of the Norwegian troops, Macbeth and Banquo “…doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe. / Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds…” (1.2.33, 38–9). Alongside the repetition of “doubly redoubled,” which conveys an excess of destruction, the image of the soldiers “bath[ing] in reeking wounds” further suggests a violation of the boundary that separates inside from outside. From one perspective, Macbeth and Banquo have literally entered their enemies’ bodies and are “bath[ing]” in their wounds. Alternatively, “wounds” can act as a metonymy for all of the blood that has escaped from their victims’ bodies, suggesting that this blood is in such excess that the soldiers are able to “bathe” in it. Both readings convey a disturbance of the boundary marking the body’s limits. After hearing the captain’s report, Duncan dismisses him, saying, “So well thy words become thee as thy wounds: / They smack of honour both” (1.2.43–4). Reading the soldier’s wounds as a reflection of his worth, Duncan expresses a system of valuation characteristic to a warrior culture that exalts masculine strength and violence. The juxtaposition of his words with the description of Macbeth and Banquo “bath[ing]” in the “reeking wounds” of their enemies demonstrates a contradiction inherent to this warrior culture: while wounds, or a leakage of bodily fluids, reflect weakness in one context, in another they signify strength. This paradox slightly unravels the tightness of the logic of the masculine warrior culture shown, as it demonstrates how, in this realm, symbols do not correlate neatly to a single meaning. Another paradox within the political system of Macbeth comes to light when Duncan speaks to Macbeth and Banquo after the battle. His words convey a social ideal of a community centered on balance and nourishment, which opposes the destructive, masculine culture previously depicted. Expressing his gratitude to Macbeth for his heroic performance, Duncan says, “Welcome hither. / I have begun to plant thee, and will labour / To make thee full of growing” (1.4.27–9). Here, Duncan uses agricultural imagery to describe his relationship to Macbeth: like a farmer plants a seed into the earth and toils to make it grow, Duncan is planting Macbeth into the political system of Scotland and investing time and work to aid his social growth. In this metaphor, the word “labour” suggests the man’s work of husbandry, which is centered on the care and cultivation of crops and animals—work that facilitates the continuous cycle of life. Furthermore, Duncan’s language suggests the paternal side of human sexual reproduction, as the image of planting suggests the father’s work of planting seed into the mother’s womb. This metaphor is made more complex in its allusion to maternal reproductive work: the suggestion of “labour[ing]” connotes the womb’s work of childbirth, and Duncan thereby implies that he himself is the womb giving birth to Macbeth. This notion of maternity plays out in the idea of “full[ness] of growing,” which associates Macbeth with the image of a pregnant mother, suggesting that Duncan is not just invested in Macbeth’s own life, but in the soldier’s capacity to yield and nourish future generations. By describing his work as a patriarch using the terms of both maternal and paternal labor and applying the same imagery to Macbeth, Duncan reflects an ethos that transcends divisions of gender—an androgynous ethos that displays the human race as a unified entity sharing in a cycle of life and reproduction. Duncan continues to use language that suggests growth and nourishment when he says, “My plenteous joys, / Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves / In drops of sorrow” (1.4.33– 5). He calls his joys “plenteous” as if describing the results of a bountiful harvest—the harvest that he has “labour[ed]” to produce. Then, again using the maternal image of “full[ness],” Duncan describes his joys as being so pregnant with life that they exceed the limits of his body and take on the form of tears. In light of the agricultural imagery, these tears can be read as the water that nourishes the soil, fertilizing the seeds within it. Duncan then moves beyond imagery of growth and nourishment by evoking human emotions, suggesting that if it weren’t for his emotional capacity he would not be able to produce fertilizing tears with which to water the ground. Making use of the ambiguity of tears as a signifier of both joy and sorrow, Duncan highlights the complex, interwoven nature of human emotions. Duncan’s language stands in stark contrast to the words of Lady Macbeth in the following scene. After she learns about the Weird Sisters’ prophecy that her husband will become king, she muses about him, saying, “Yet do I fear thy nature. / It is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way” (1.5.14–6). Using the metaphor of a mother’s milk to describe Macbeth’s innate compassion, Lady Macbeth articulates her fear that this quality will prevent him from pursuing his own interest. In contrast to Duncan, who regards it as his duty to sustain the lives of others, Lady Macbeth sees the nurturing quality of her husband as a hindrance to him. She goes on to say of Macbeth, “Hie thee hither, / That I may pour my spirits in thine ear….” suggesting that she will replace his “milk of … kindness” with the contents of her body (1.5.23–4). 7 Her following speech sheds light onto the nature of the substance that she intends to transfer; she exclaims, Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood, Stop up th’access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th’effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall… (1.5.38–46) With these words, Lady Macbeth commands ambiguous spirits to “unsex” her and then tells them to fill her to the brim with “cruelty” as if this quality were a fluid—the antithesis of the compassion embodied in Duncan’s tears of sorrow and Macbeth’s milky kindness. Then, imagining that her capacity for remorse resides in a specific part of her body, Lady Macbeth calls upon spirits to thicken her blood and “stop up th’access and passage” to this place so that no “compunctious visitings” will “keep peace between” her desires and her achievement of them. 8 Just as she views her husband’s kindness as an impediment, stopping him from achieving the “nearest way,” Lady Macbeth regards her own capacity to feel sorrow as a hindrance to her achievement of her aim. When she goes on to tell the spirits to remove her woman’s milk and 7 “Spirits” was used in early modern scientific discourse to refer to substances that circulated in the blood. See “spirit, n.” 8 Galen’s humoral theory about the relationship between the body and the mental/emotional aspects of an individual influenced Western thinking. Unlike Plato’s belief that the psyche is separate and exists prior to the body, Galen held that the human is fully embodied, and that one’s personality and experiences are linked to the physical self (Keller, 36-40). replace it with gall, or the bitter substance of the liver, Lady Macbeth suggests that gall is an aspect of the liquid cruelty with which she desires to be filled. By associating this liquid with her breast milk, Lady Macbeth implies that in “pour[ing]” her “spirits” into her husband’s ear she is bringing Macbeth to her breast in a grotesque reconstruction of a maternal nursing scene. 9 The distorted nursery scene that Lady Macbeth alludes to is fully realized in the image she later creates for her husband when he tells her that he is no longer going to go through with his plan to murder Duncan. She says darkly, …I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this. (1.7.54–59) In the scene she describes, Lady Macbeth performs the maternal labor of a new mother, nourishing her infant with the milk of her breasts. Just as Duncan reacted to the successes of his soldiers—his “plenteous joys”—with “drops of sorrow,” Lady Macbeth’s work is tied up with emotions: while performing it she feels “tender” love for her infant. However, Lady Macbeth flips this image of fertility and compassion on its head when she declares that if she had sworn to do something as horrifying as that which Macbeth has sworn to do in murdering Duncan, she would not hesitate to cut off her child’s access to nourishment and “[dash] [its] brains out” in order to carry out her word. With these words, Lady Macbeth equates the bond between subject 9 Janet Adelman argues that this gall is witches milk, and uses this to link Lady Macbeth to the Weird Sisters. She also suggests that Lady Macbeth’s words can be read as a command to the spirits, or witches to “take my milk as gall,” indicating that the spirits are nursing her breast (135). and king to that which links a mother to her child and insists that such human bonds will not obstruct the fulfillment of her and Macbeth’s ambitions. Furthermore, the destruction she evokes in promising to “[dash] the brains out” of her infant reflects the violence of the battle scene at the play’s beginning. Just as Macbeth was responsible for opening up the bodies of his enemies and releasing blood from their wounds, Lady Macbeth is breaking through her infant’s skull and expelling its contents. After conjuring up this ominous image, Lady Macbeth assures her husband that they will be able to get away with Duncan’s murder, telling him she will “with wine and wassail so convince” the king’s chamberlains That memory, the warder of the brain, Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep Their drenchèd natures lie as in a death, What cannot you and I perform upon Th’unguarded Duncan? (1.7.64–70) Lady Macbeth’s language compromises the shield-like function of the officers. After describing the memory as the protective “warder” of the brain, she transforms those of the officers into “fume[s],” or gasses—substances that can easily be passed through. She similarly declares that after she has her way with them, their rational components will be mere “limbeck[s],” or instruments used to transmit fluids from one vessel to another. By reconstructing these parts of the men, Lady Macbeth penetrates their psychological barriers and subsequently renders Duncan completely “unguarded” and vulnerable to her murderous intent. Evoking Macbeth’s penetration of soldiers on the battlefield, this image masculinizes Lady Macbeth. After listening to his wife’s scheme Macbeth says to her, “Bring forth men-children only, / For thy undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males” (1.7.72–4). “Undaunted” describes something that is not held back; Scottish writers of the 16th century used it to refer to something that is unbridled or unrestrained (“Un-daunted, adj.”). This word reflects the “unsex[ing]” that Lady Macbeth attempted involving the destruction of any aspect of her that impedes the achievement of her purpose and suggests that in the eyes of her husband, Lady Macbeth has succeeded with this elimination. Furthermore, “mettle,” meaning disposition, plays on metal, suggesting that the material of Lady Macbeth’s body is completely solid and impenetrable, a characteristic that links her to the body of her warrior husband from the beginning of the play (Adelman, 139). Macbeth interprets these characteristics of unbridledness and impenetrability as signs of masculinity when he declares that his wife is only capable of producing “men-children.” Critics have engaged in debate about Lady Macbeth’s attempted “unsex[ing],” with some parties arguing that she is trying to remove her feminine qualities and become all masculine and others holding that she is trying to enter into a category apart from either sex and from humanity altogether. 10 Lady Macbeth’s description of this process as one of “unsex[ing]” and the allusion she makes to the female menstrual cycle by describing her impediments as “visitings of nature” suggest that she aims to destroy her feminine capacities in order to become the strong and ruthless figure that she envisions. Furthermore, Macbeth’s declaration to “Bring forth menchildren only” suggests that Lady Macbeth has eliminated her feminine aspects in exchange for masculinity. But this reading of Lady Macbeth’s “unsex[ing]” is in tension with the image of 10 Joan Klein and Janet Adelman both argue that Lady Macbeth is specifically attacking her feminine aspect, while Stephanie Chamberlain argues that she is attempting to move beyond the categories of gender altogether, into a nonhuman space that would allow her to behave without the restrictions of gender norms (Chamberlain 79). manhood that the play has created to this point through its male characters. Both Duncan and Macbeth have been revealed to possess maternal qualities, such as tenderness and the capacity to nourish. Through these portrayals, Shakespeare suggests a conception of manhood that goes beyond gender distinctions and harmonizes with a notion of humanity as a whole. This notion casts Lady Macbeth’s “unsex[ing]” as an un-gendering or a de-humanizing: by eliminating her ability to reproduce as well as her capacity to feel remorse, she is not removing aspects of her being that are strictly female, but aspects of it that are human. Thus Macbeth adheres to a mistaken construction of manhood when he regards Lady Macbeth as purely male in substance— he fails to see that her attempted transformation moved her beyond human categories altogether. When Lady Macbeth calls upon spirits to “unsex” her, she literally asks that they slow and stop up the flow of her blood. In this formulation, she associates the movement of blood with the maternal qualities that she disdains: compassion and nurturement. This appraisal of her blood flow is realized in the metaphor Macbeth later uses to describe Duncan’s blood. When he informs Duncan’s sons of their father’s murder, Macbeth says to them, “The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood / Is stopped, the very source of it is stopped” (2.3.95–6). In this image, Duncan’s blood symbolizes the fluid that sustains his children; it is like the fertile tears with which he waters his seeds. However, moments after he refers to Duncan’s blood flow as a “fountain” that has been “stopped,” Macbeth describes the scene of murder as if it is a battle scene, emphasizing the penetration of Duncan’s bodily barriers. He reports, His silver skin laced with his golden blood, And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature For ruin’s wasteful entrance; there the murderers, Steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breeched with gore. (2.3.109–113) By describing Duncan’s stabs as “a breach in nature,” Macbeth suggests that prior to the invasion of the murderers, Duncan’s body was perfect and intact; like nature, it was an unblemished container for life. But the murderers, like nature’s enemy “ruin,” invaded his body with their daggers, breaking the perfect container in an image that evokes the blood-covered battlefield as well as the “dashed… brains” of Lady Macbeth’s infant. By punning on “breach” when he describes the murderers’ weapons as “breeched with gore,” Macbeth emphasizes the dislocation of Duncan’s blood from inside his system to the outsides of the murderers’ bodies and weapons. He also highlights the word’s paradoxical meanings: while the “breach” in Duncan’s body suggests that something has been opened or uncovered, the daggers that are “breeched with gore” are covered up or concealed. Returning to the aforementioned image of Duncan’s body as a fountain, it appears that by “breach[ing]” Duncan’s body and spilling his blood the murderers have metaphorically stopped up the blood and prevented its flow, which occurs because Duncan’s body is simultaneously a container leaking its contents and a fountain whose blood has been stopped up. These two constructions of Duncan’s body reflect the dual ideas of manhood operating in the play. In the masculine realm of the battlefield, the movement of blood from inside to outside the body suggests weakness and vulnerability, signifying that a container has been penetrated. But when manhood corresponds to humanity as a whole, blood becomes a nourishing fluid—equivalent to tears or milk—that is metaphorically capable of moving from one individual’s body and into another, nourishing and sustaining life across generations. It is this latter formulation of blood that Lady Macbeth attempts to destroy when she “unsex[es]” herself: she tries to thicken her blood and prevent it from passing through her body in order to eliminate her maternal capacities. The conclusion of Macbeth returns us to the battlefield, where the two ideas of manhood directly confront each other in the fight between Macbeth and Macduff. In the words of Ramsey, Macbeth’s moral career follows a “terrible progressive disjunction between the manly and the humane” and by the end of the play he achieves this disjunction and becomes almost entirely “manly” in the narrow, violent sense of the word (286). To do so, Macbeth progressively diminishes the gap between his thoughts and his actions—the gap that reflects his conscience, which initially impedes his ability to pursue his ambitions. After he murders Duncan, Macbeth anguishes, Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red. (2.2.58–61) Here, Macbeth laments that his conscience will never be eased, and he will be perpetually plagued with guilt and paranoia, metaphorically represented as blood staining his hand. In his eyes, this blood is inexhaustible—he imagines that if he were to try to wash it off it would stain an ocean’s worth of water red. Later, after learning that Banquo has been killed, Macbeth says, “I am in blood / Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er” (3.4.135–7). Evoking the depth of the blood that he has shed as a metaphor to describe the intensity of the guilt and anxiety that he feels, Macbeth declares that he is so “deep” in the river of this blood that returning to his earlier state of innocence would be just as “tedious” as continuing to move deeper into violence and crime. His suspension is a reversal of the image of Macbeth’s warrior self at the beginning of the play, who was “carv[ing] his passage” through his enemies’ bodies and “bath[ing]” in their “wounds,” with no guilt or remorse weighing on his conscience. Now, his mobility is impeded by his consideration of the horrible deeds that he has done, which Macbeth acknowledges when he says, “Strange things I have in head that will to hand, / Which must be acted ere they may be scanned” (3.4.138–9). Macbeth resolves to overcome his hesitations after his second encounter with the Weird Sisters, who send him an apparition of a bloody child that instructs him to adhere to the narrower code of manhood: “Be bloody, bold, and resolute” (4.1.95). Macbeth in turn affirms his intent of eliminating his conscience and acting without contemplation: “From this moment / The very firstlings of my heart shall be / The firstlings of my hand” (4.1.163–4). This resolve leads him to carry out the most horrifying and unwarranted murder of the play—the slaughter of Macduff’s unprotected wife and children. In contrast to Macbeth, who eradicates his humane aspect and becomes purely and violently masculine, Macduff embodies an androgynous, compassionate manhood when he learns that his family has been killed. When Malcolm tells him to “Dispute it like a man,” Macduff responds, “I shall do so, / But I must also feel it as a man” (5.1.221–3). Malcolm goes on to say, “Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief / Convert to anger: blunt not the heart, enrage it” (5.1.230–1). While Malcolm is adhering to a narrow formulation of manhood, telling Macduff not to dwell on his grief but rather to use it as fuel for immediate vengeance, Macduff asserts that some humane consideration—some experience of emotion—must precede such action. His response reflects Duncan’s implication that compassionate tears, representative of human emotion, are an essential ingredient for the maintenance of a successful warrior culture. In reference to Macduff and Malcolm’s exchange, Ramsey writes, “Nowhere in the play is there a more cruel disjunction of the moral claims on ‘Man’” (296). Ramsey further notes that Macduff is soon “driven into that familiar harsh polarization according to sex of human feelings that should belong to the race as a whole” when he exclaims, “O, I could play the woman with mine eyes / And braggart with my tongue!” (296) (4.3.232–3). Macduff then shifts into the performance of a confidant warrior, asking the “gentle heavens” to “cut short all intermission” and bring him “front to front” with his enemy, Macbeth (4.3.233–4). This transformation leads into the final confrontation between Macbeth, the seemingly all-masculine monster, and Macduff, who embodies a balance of the “manly and the humane”. By juxtaposing the androgyny of Duncan and Macduff with Macbeth’s monstrosity, Shakespeare presents a code of manhood that demotes a gendered concept of masculinity and replaces it with a code that values compassion and fertility. Through its emphasis on continuity across genders rather than distinction, this new code of manhood evokes the Galenic, one-sex model of the body that views bodies as mixtures of male and female elements. Interestingly, a second kind of mixing takes place in Macbeth: the image of blood moves from one code of manhood to the other, at times signifying sterile, violent masculinity and elsewhere evoking androgynous unity. I revisit this second kind of mixing in Chapter 3, after a brief stop to Illyria, where Twelfth Night sets its scene.