Out Damned Spot : Lady Macbeth, o della colpa visibile

Starting on the assumption that Shakespeare’s Macbeth should be considered as one of the first and more tightly functioning paradigm of crime fiction, my work here focusses on Lady Macbeth as a character inheriting an already existing model of transgressive woman and at the same time anticipating the most recurring female profile in contemporary noir fiction. By tracing – through Shakespeare’s play – a process by which women become evil because they fail to perform their femininity through appropriate behaviors, we will consider the persistence of the prevailing Western female stereotype, grounded in such “qualities” as submission, passivity and obedience. Conversely, we will also see how sharp and radical their punishment can be when they show a definite manliness, that is felt as a betrayal of fathers, husbands, and lovers, denying the patrilinear moral order invested in a passive and obedient female nature.