SOURCE: “Engendering the Narrative Act: Old Wives' Tales in The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, and The Tempest,” in Criticism, Vol. XL, No. 4, Fall, 1998, pp. 529-53.

In the following essay, Lamb analyzes the role of women's folk tales and their influence in The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, and The Tempest.

As Macbeth stares in terror at Banquo's ghost during a banquet for the Scottish lords, Lady Macbeth contemptuously compares his hallucination to oral narratives circulated among women:

                                                            O proper stuff! This the very painting of your fear; This the air-drawn dagger which you said Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts (Imposters to true fear) would well become A woman's story at a winter's fire, Authoriz’d by her grandam. Shame itself, Why do you make such faces?(1) 

Framing her criticism with attacks against his masculinity—“Are you a man?” and “What, quite unmanned in folly?”—Lady Macbeth represents...