Double Double Toil or Trouble: Supernatural Feminine Gender Performance in Macbeth and The Winter's Tale

Innocence withers from thy rotted skin, 

Which decomposes from this wicked prose, 

Whose perversive tongue is as sweet as sin; 

Only a Witch would cut flesh with a rose! 

The chosen entities of Apollo, 

Would perhaps divine a path from spilled blood, 

But their forms are ineffably hollow: 

Solely pairs were meant to survive the flood.

Thine lips can oft heal with a simple kiss,

 And fairly flutter with thy Fae embrace!

 But this hallowed form is still to, amiss,

 Even though thou art the meaning of grace!

If this is defined femininity, 

Then our solace is anonymity!

A Shakespearean sonnet is a form to be emulated, for only William Shakespeare can write in his own voice. I can emulate his meter, rhythm, metaphors, and structure, but it is like trying to use candle wax to seal a letter: a substance that melts the same often hardens in different ways. In the same way, performances can only be performed by the original performer, and every other representation thereafter becomes a copy of a copy, slowly falling due to the entropic decay in which it is bound. This is the theater of gender performance, in which femininity is a kaleidoscopic spectacle. These mythic origins of feminine representations all met each other in the most transformative era of theater, and motifs of these characters are entropically copied to this day. This is not to say that feminine identifying persons are just decayed versions of the supernaturally constructed female, but instead are intrinsically influenced to base their performances around these theatrical aberrations.

In the binary of gender performance, man is reality, and anything that is not man is simulacrum. Thus, the stage representation of femininity relies on the stages’ inherent supernatural othering in order to both construct and deconstruct reality. For the context of this paper selections of Jean Baudrillard’s Simulations will be utilized to deconstruct feminine gender performance on the Shakespearean stage. However, this is not an analysis of Shakespearean literature. This is an analysis of post human theory as it pertains to the construction of reality. In order to explicate the history of  mass media and gender reality, it would be impossible to ignore one of the greatest cultural giants of popularized media. The motifs in language that Shakespeare created and popularized shaped how we perceive gender today. 

The construction of femininity as a gender performance is too nuanced to condense into a binaristic view of positive and negative performances of womanhood. However, for this argument the construction of femininity will be allocated to three broad categories specific to the vernacular of supernatural othering. First, there is the negative Jacobean Witch who is exemplified through Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Second, there is the genderqueer Oracle, who will be expressed through the Weird Sisters in Macbeth. The third category is the positive Fairy trope, whose pagan connotations will be exemplified through Hermione in The Winter’s Tale. The performance of these feminized characteristics through supernatural othering creates a categorization of womanhood that transcends both the Shakespearean stage and the supernatural itself. Additionally, it is through these performances that feminine reality is constructed. The binary we adhere to is not feminine to masculine, but masculine to non-masculine. If femininity is anything other than masculine, then unmasculine is allocated to femininity. Thus, the unnatural actions of the feminine become supernatural, and gender becomes lost for everyone in this category. 

In Baudrillard’s treatise, he postulates that nothing is real in our reality, therefore everything is real in our reality. He states that there are four stages of reality in which we operate and act; First there is acting to reflect how we view reality. Second, there is masking and perverting reality, which therefore diverges from what we view as real. Third, there is masking the absence of reality, which would elicit surreality– fully enrapturing us in the illusions of the action. All three of these would be simulations of reality because they are all imitating a reality. However, there are actions that bear no sense of reality because it is no longer an imitation, but its own reality. Thus, the fourth stage of reality is hyperreality: a reality that can only exist in the context of itself. Contemporary views on witchcraft would denote that this analysis would fall in the third or fourth stage of reality due to the inherent disbelief in any kind of spectacular magic. However, it is more accurate to say that Shakespeare’s feminine representations embody all four stages of reality simultaneously.

The embodiment of all four stages of reality is necessary in order for simulacra to construct its own hyperreality. Therefore, the deconstruction of these stages implies the intrinsic interactions and reactions with the actions from the off-stage reality that constructed these characters. The characters become an objectified representation of off-stage perceptions of reality, but it is also only an object because of its relation to stage performance. For this analysis, the object of representation is the embodied female because it is being denegated by its own vehicle of representation: the stage. By framing feminized characters in this supernatural context, Shakespeare is separating male-ness from the inherent hyperreality of the stage, ultimately anchoring woman-ness with the notion of the simulated reality. These abject characters are simply abstract objects personified, which irrevocably ties non-male performances on and off the stage to the stereotypes that are exemplified in these Shakespearean characters. Ultimately, the perpetuation of stage performance constructs a hyperreality of gender through the supernatural unmasculine, and it is through that hyperreality that feminine identifying persons exist in reality.

This analysis will focus primarily on Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Winter’s Tale. The supernaturally gendered characters called into question are Lady Macbeth and The Weird Sisters from Macbeth, and Hermione from The Winter’s Tale. Because these are Shakespearean characters, their visibility is intrinsically linked with theater performance. Shakespearean characters, especially in the viewpoint of Elizabethan and Jacobean society, would all have inherent ties to the demonic. Shakespeare scholars Andrew Gurr and Mariko Ichikawa elaborate on not only Shakespearean stage production, but stage reception as well. At the time that Shakespeare would be writing and perpetuating his work, “strict Church of England theology” would dictate that “any act of deception or false illusion was said to be the work of the Devil. All playgoers were guilty of willingly consenting to be deceived, and players were accused of being agents of the Devil in their work of deception and illusion” (Gurr, Ichikawa 3). While this would be true for all players and playgoers, there is a layered act of deception in a man playing a woman who is subverting womanhood.

Theater itself was steeped in supernatural perception; however, this communal experience quickly transcended its devilish drawbacks. Large swaths of individuals would gather and sit or stand for hours to communally engage in subversive religious acts they were all aware of. Every person present was guilty of participating and perpetuating this detrimental supernatural hyperreality until it became their actual reality. Even King James I, the Scot obsessed with witchcraft, endorsed players after Elizabeth I’s death “by making his own family patrons of three adult companies, and allowed the two boy companies to go on with their plays as well” (Gurr, Ichikawa 18). Because King James I tied himself to the theater in this way, the theater evolved to fit the viewpoint of the restored patriarchal power. Additionally, the way that strong femininity was represented became indicative of King James I’s views towards the previous feminine subversion of the status quo. Elizabeth’s legacy created a vacuum that needed to be filled, and the unconventional had to be rectified by another unconventional ruler. While politics have always played a role in how people are perceived, it is evident through this exceptional transition of power that the mass media of the theater popularized these perceptions.

Whereas any gender performance is constructed in the perception of the other, the construction of the subversive feminine is inherent in the Jacobean Witch. King James I influenced artists and authors of his time to write about the occult and demonology due to his well-known obsession with the subject. This led to a different kind of subjugation of the anti patriarchal woman, in which witchcraft was intermingled with subversion. While the contemporary view of witchcraft involves magic and flying broomsticks, Jacobean “witches have no magical powers of their own, no special gifts; their powers are purely derivative” (Willis 18). This derivative power is defined through the mockery of the devilry inherent in deception, and more poignant, the deception of stagecraft. Characters like Lady Macbeth, the Weird Sisters and Hermione would be seen as witch-like because of their inherent meta representations. While this would be true of all non-male performances, the characters discussed in this analysis distinctly portray the process of regendering. Thus, despite the fact that all feminine characters exhibit this same deceptive nature, the only true Jacobean Witch in this analysis is Lady Macbeth. While the women in The Winter’s Tale exemplify a colloquial belief of inheritable magic powers in witch-families, they only act to benefit and restore a patriarchal power that is in need of restoration. Similarly, the Weird Sisters do not act to destabilize or undermine patriarchal authority, but instead act to explain this phenomenon. Lady Macbeth, however, wholly encapsulates the detrimental demoness that cements feminine subversion through anti-patriarchal rhetoric. While her ambition is in her mind beneficial to her family patriarch, it clearly acts to destabilize Scotland’s divine ruler, King Duncan. While this could be said about Macbeth himself, the idea of witch-dom is inherently gendered. While there were men prosecuted for witchcraft, it was in relation to the witch-family. Thus, while Macbeth struggled with both the Weird Sisters prophecy and Lady Macbeth's ambition, it would not have been “noteworthy for internal violations of hierarchy; ironically, witch-families were in certain ways models of family order” meaning that Lady Macbeth's derivative power would be entirely explicative of the “dominant logic informing Jacobean pamphlets about witch-families” (Willis 15).

Lady Macbeth’s influence over Macbeth would be seen as wholly characteristic of the Jacobean Witch because it is directly related to her position as a wife as well as a conduit for Macbeth’s ambitions. All of Lady Macbeth’s characteristics are seen as Witch characteristics for the sole reason that she is a woman. This, coupled with the assertion of the perverted witchfamily, implies that it is entirely necessary that the performance of the subvergent character is feminine. 

While the Jacobean Witch is wholly represented in Macbeth through Lady Macbeth, the wiccan by name are not as roundly representative of this motif. The Weird Sisters are feminine by title, but genderqueer by appearance; unable to be interpreted as women due to their beards (Macbeth 1.3). The story of Macbeth was written as a sensationalized media representation of King James I, who contextually would be linked to Banquo’s lineage. While this would publicly validate his ascension to the throne after Elizabeth I, it would also validate the authority of the Oracle characters. While the Oracle character is explicitly seen through the apparitional Oracle in The Winter’s Tale, the archetype is more notably exemplified through the inconceivable Weird Sisters. Their words are like the decrees of the fates: wholly acceptable yet wholly inescapable. Thus, as the Weird Sisters air corruption, they cannot be the air of corruption.

The ability to pierce through the stage and win over the audiences’ trust would be allocated to what Shakespeare scholars Paranyuk and Tychinia define as a sentinel or sage character. This character pierces the veil between the reality of the audience and the hyperreality of the stage, which situates them as the authority of the story to come. The sage is important because in the perpetual deception of the stage, the character embodying this position pierce through the illusion. Grappling with the ambiguity in this oxymoronic role is crucial to understanding the regendering of the Oracle characters. However, the term Oracle conveys an inherent gendered position that is integral to understanding Jacobean stagecraft. This position is entirely represented through the Weird Sisters because they are never questioned on their predictions nor do they deceive the audience with their words. Their meta performance undermines the devilish deception of the stage whilst simultaneously participating in the act of deception. Because of this, the Oracle would need to not only pierce through the stage with their words, but they would also need to evoke sensations from classical literary heritage in order to appear neutral in a space of non-neutrality. While the position of the Oracle in The Winter’s Tale is inarguably saged, the Weird Sisters’ presences are more ambiguous. However, the Weird Sisters are wholly trusted, and their authority through their otherworldly knowledge is unquestionable. The validity of their predictions are never suspect, and none of the events that come to pass are de-legitimized because of their otherwise inherently demonic input.

Shakespeare differentiates his feminine characters in his plays on the basis of their threat to the patriarchy– ultimately drawing on the Witch stereotype to do so. However, Shakespeare differs in the Jacobean Witch stereotype by overtly associating The Winter’s Tale women with the good Witch, or the Fairy. Hermione acts in benefit with the patriarchal power, and it is the patriarchal power that is in need of rescue from itself. It is important to understand that this construction of a feminine character is exemplifying power for the patriarchy, and not in spite of it. However, both the Fairy and the Witch are constructed through their contested powers in relation, and with the capability to subvert patriarchal authority. Thus, the nomenclature employed to denote the identities of these feminine characters must be polarized. Fairy tale expert and contemporary interpreter of female characters, Susanna Barsotti, explains the witch-fairy dichotomy as malevolent versus salvific. Both supernatural presentations involve feminine identifying persons, and despite the contemporary view of the Fairy and the Witch as separate, “the first one bringing positives and salvific aspects, the second one negative and malefic ones, we must however keep in mind that the original distinction was not so clear” (Barsotti 74). The ambiguity lies in their assertion of power, and the binary opposition of good and evil depends on their relationship to their patriarchal authority. Therefore, their cultural constructions are inherently based in the reality that King James I bolstered in England. Through Hermione, Shakespeare shifts the perception of the Jacobean Witch and allocates these feminine characters to the Fairy, as Barsotti explains that while “the fairy shares a basic identity with the witch, which defines her as a power capable of dominating nature” she takes on the role of a Great Mother, while the witch “gradually takes upon herself only demonic and bad traits” (75).

Thus, Shakespeare’s definition of the Witch in the positive connotation in The Winter’s Tale is both rebellious of the monarchy as well as understandable to the people who would have watched his play. The ‘culture’ that shapes the identity of the Witch, and more importantly Hermione, are of an entirely different make than that of King James I’s. Shakespeare’s definition of the Witch was not only rebellious of the monarchy, but was also ingrained in the people who would watch his play. Although it would have been impossible at the time to reject the reality King James I cultivated, it would not have been impossible to mask the absence of reality, especially through stagecraft. Barsotti’s definition of the Fairy identity being reimagined through the underlying cultural context that King James I built upon is a reaction to King James I’s reaction to that underlying reality. These pagan notions of cultural reality will be the driving force in understanding how the Fairy is constructed, and what reality it perpetuates on stage.

The understanding of the pagan-ness of the Fairy is important to understanding the performance of feminine gender. This is because it is through the fairy that the pagan underlying reality of England is exemplified. Therefore, it is through the pagan reality that the Fairy exists as more than a counterculture to the Witch or the Oracle, but as an underlying influential reality. While the previous two subgroups linger on an amoral othering inherent to gender perception, the Fairy defines their power through their positive relationship to the patriarchy. However, the inherent threat due to their powerful tongues still regenders them like the regendering of Lady Macbeth. The difference is that the regendering of Hermione is only detrimental to Hermione, and thus beneficial to those who would use her tongue to maintain their power. While it was previously established that Shakespeare borrowed from the pagan understanding of the Witch in order to contextualize the Fairy characters, it does not explain how this contextualization defines their regendering. The Fairy, like the Witch and the Oracle, are perceived as supernatural. This intrinsically links the perception of these female characters to something that does not physically exist. This is important because the Fairy does everything right except existing: they benefit from hegemonic powers, they perform their femininity exactly how they are meant to, and they are willing to sacrifice themselves if it means calming the insecurities of the king. 

Shakespearean scholar Ying-chiao Lin describes the phenomenon of the threatening power of feminine speech through contextualizing female tongues with Elizabethan and Jacobean female healers. These healers would be seen through the same supernatural lens as the on-stage female characters. Lin states that the perception of the power female healers would have displayed mimics salvific witchcraft, denoting an underlying pagan reality of witchcraft and magic. Thus, feminine power of speech threatens the patriarchal status quo simply because it displays an inexplicable power existing where it should not.

The binary of masculine and unmasculine is a matter of false perception. The preconceived notions of a one-to-one difference of gender performance are the grand illusion we have all consented to participate in. The Fairy and the Witch would have been competing in the viewers’ lives as well as through the inherent deception of the stage. While the Witch and the Oracle show that non-masculine entities are capable of wielding power, the Fairy shows that non-masculine entities can wield said power in a way that is inarguably good for the society in which they inhabit. However, even if this power is inarguably good, the only way to truly embody the Fairy is to exterminate their own power. One can either sacrifice themselves for the sake of the king like Hermione, or exterminate the salvific qualities of the Fairy and become a Witch like Lady Macbeth. Additionally, it is only through truly existing outside patriarchal jurisdiction that the Oracle can maintain their power as well. Thus, the perfectly powerful woman is a fairy tale that the off-stage and off-page woman is supposed to emulate and not actually embody.

The binary of masculine and unmasculine is a matter of false perception. The preconceived notions of a one-to-one difference of gender performance are the grand illusion we have all consented to participate in. We are the supernatural theater, and our performances are the essence of magic. Thus, 

If this is defined femininity, 

Then our solace is anonymity. 

Works Cited 

Barsotti, Susanna. “The Fairy Tale: Recent Interpretations, Female Characters and Contemporary

 Rewriting. Considerations about an ‘Irresistible’ Genre.” Ricerche Di Pedagogia e Didattica, no. 2, 2015, p. 69-80. EBSCOhost, doi:10.6092/issn.1970-2221/5356

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulations. Semiotext(e), 1983.

Gurr, Andrew, and Mariko Ichikawa. Staging in Shakespeare's Theatres. Oxford University

Press, 2013.

Paranyuk, Dan and Tychinina, Alyona. “The Fantastic Shakespeare: Character’s Passionary

Confocality in the Aspect of Reception.” Pitannâ Lìteraturoznavstva, no. 98, Dec. 2018,

pp. 191–207. EBSCOhost, doi:10.31861/pytlit2018.98.191.

Willis, Deborah. “The Witch-Family in Elizabethan and Jacobean Print Culture.” Journal for

Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, 2013, EBSCOhost.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, 3rd ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2016, pp. 1017–1069.

Shakespeare, William. The Winter’s Tale. The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, 

3rd ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2016, pp. 1429–1500.