Un/Sexing Women in Maqbool: The female agency in the cinematic adaptation of Macbeth

Abstract

The brutality of Lady Macbeth is immemorially remembered and debated. Lady Macbeth, in the
Elizabethan England, shocked the audience with her violent aspirations and unimaginable crimes,
not common to women. In the twenty first century India, Vishal Bhardwaj, relocates and repurposes
Lady Macbeth for the Indian audience in his cinematic adaptation of Macbeth namely Maqbool.
The leading character is placed within the world of the underworld and while, resonating with the
violence of Lady Macbeth, she also foregrounds the social, political, cultural and economic
trappings of her context. The present paper studies the cinematic adaptation of the powerful female
characters - Lady Macbeth and the three witches vis-à-vis the chosen film in the Indian context and
focusses on the different degrees of struggle and assertion the three women- Nimmi, Mohini and
Sameera- put across in their own capacity and within the given circumstances.