Shakespeare’s Disguised Heroines, Gender Stereotypes and Androgyny: The Analysis of Female Characters in Twelfth Night and the Merchant of Venice (original) (raw)
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Vidyasagar University, 2019
It is a most significant matter and aspect of Shakespeare's artistic genius in presenting his women character, that I'm now going to deliberate and contemplate through my paper and thereby bring out a social picture of Shakespeare's time: it's patriarchy, women's condition and their social importance. In our way of discussing women character in Shakespeare's plays, we have to cast a view upon social condition of women, Queen Elizabeth's influence, its stage plays and many others. In this very paper I am going to project three different types of woman and try to determine them socially during Queen Elizabeth's reign. Amongst the other huge number of women character, few important characters are categorized and discussed briefly. And mostly Shakespeare's intelligence and skill in fitting them in a right place and in a right manner is also a central theme of my paper. The various characters with their fluency, their obstacles, their dealings with men and above all Shakespeare's managing of them is purposefully presented on my discussion. In a word, Shakespeare's view upon his female characters, weather it is glorious, jovial or timid investigated argumentatively.
Advances in Language and Literary Studies
The main argument of this article is focused on three plays by William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Hamlet and Merry Wives of Windsor. There are several points in these plays which deal with woman and their rights. This article deals with Shakespeare’s plays in relation to feminism, which pays more attention to the rights of women and their true identity. In all societies women are defined in terms of their relations to men as the center of power to which women have limited or no access. Judith Butler's performativity is significance on understandings of gender identity. Butler believes that gender is produced in society; also it can be changed in society. Feminism should aim to create a society in which, one's sexual anatomy is irrelevant to who one is, and what one does. Shakespeare’s view of a woman is shown through his representation of female characters in his plays specifically in Macbeth, Hamlet and Merry Wives of Windsor.
2012
William Shakespeare's plays tend to exhibit discernible woman figures that go beyond the accustomed passive women. The investigation carried out in this essay will be according to the research question: "Study of unconventional woman figures in William Shakespeare's comedies "Much Ado About Nothing", "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Twelfth Night" in regard to the conservative society of the period.". The purpose of this extended essay is to analyze how the prominent woman figures in the comedies Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night reject the accustomed womanly attributions and display valiancy. This essay is comprised of three sub-headings, each analyzing a particular play with respect to its most remarkable woman figures and their stance towards the society's shallow approach towards them. While analyzing the plays, the attitude towards women in the realm of the play is discussed and contrasted with the idealized heroines. In the conclusion of the study, the main elements of the comedies are juxtaposed and assembled with references to other works on Shakespeare's audacious woman figures. Based on the analysis, the common characteristics came across in these plays are gallantry, wit and confidence. As a result, it is found to be obvious that all of the females studied propose an explicit transgression that leads the way towards the two sexes becoming more equal.
Gender and Performativity: Shakespeare’s Cross-dressing Women.docx
The idea of cross-dressing is quite popular in contemporary culture, with both male and female characters adopting the guise of the opposite gender. The idea of donning a disguise to change one's assigned gender role and the ensuing character hijinks that occur are used quite frequently to develop characters and plots. We see the technique littered through literature in varying degrees of effectiveness with Shakespeare using the idea of cross-dressing to great effect in his comedies. Whether male or female, Shakespearean characters have always undergone a lot of scrutiny and analysis, and the idea of cross-dressing by characters blurs the lines between what can be considered inherently a male or female characteristic. Characters such as Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Viola in Twelfth Night or Rosalind in As You Like It donned the garbs of their male counterparts. This decision to switch genders by these characters and the consequent follow-through are what determines and moves the plot forward for all three plays. This paper explores that decision to subvert the gender boundary and seek agency. It does not look at patriarchy but rather tries to explore the idea of assigned gender roles and performativity in Shakespeare's arguably strongest female characters.
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Shakespeare's courageous women include an extensive variety of portrayals and types. Inside the exhibition of female characters, Shakespeare's female characters show incredible knowledge, essentialness, and a solid feeling of individual autonomy. These characteristics have driven a few faultfinders to look at Shakespeare as a victor of womankind and a pioneer who left pointedly from level, stereotyped portrayals of females basic to his counterparts and prior producers. Contrastingly, different reporters take note of that even Shakespeare's most positively depicted females have characters that are tempered by negative characteristics. William Shakespeare lived amid the Elizabethan period and composed every one of his works dependent on the general public of that time. The Elizabethan period was a period when females were depicted to be weaker than males. Amid that time it was said that "women are to be seen, and not heard." In this paper an endeavour has been taken to investigate
Understanding the Gender Complexities of Shakespeare
The dramatists of Shakespeare are often characterized as being feminists because of the frankness of Cordelia in King Lear, the shrewdness or Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and the psychological manipulation of Volumnia in Coriolanus. For over four hundred years we have performed the incredible representations of men and women and their various roles and responsibilities in society during the latter Renaissance period, where male actors would have pretended to be the character of Viola in Twelfth Night, while pretending to be her brother Sebastian, as a male character. This seems to be quite a complex idea in the latter sixteenth century. Some scholars have suggested that feminism did not exist during this era. I will prove in this paper that these assertions are fatally flawed – feminism was alive and well during that era. However, the dramatists of Shakespeare were not feminists, per say, they were in fact Master Kabbalists teaching the gender complexities of the ancient Zohar and the Tree of Life, where one can allow ego to ruin one’s life, or shut down our reactive system and be transformed to the supernal (heavenly) realm of perfection beyond human perception and repair the world.
The Elizabethan Era and Shakespeare’s Women Characters in the Public Arena
The Criterion, 2019
This study manages the situation of women in the public arena in Elizabethan Era and how these are delineated in the composition of William Shakespeare. The English writer is viewed as one of the best dramatist ever who manages the positions in which women play in his dramatization and how they impact their individual stories.Shakespeare and also the members of the Elizabethan era would be dismayed at the freedoms women expertise nowadays. What we tend to see throughout Shakespeare's plays is associate insight into the feminine character as perceived by Elizabethan culture. Shakespeare's feminine characters mirror the Elizabethan era's image of women; they were to be virtuous and tractable and people that weren't were delineated as undesirable and even evil. Shakespeare's ability for creating all types of characters is one noteworthy angle that represents this elevated affirmation. The outstanding playwright made many different female characters who are so human and genuine that the audience can see parts of their own identitiesregardless.
Politics in the Representation of Women in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
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The major concern of this paper is to study on how women are represented in the comedy Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. In the drama, the women characters Viola, Olivia and Maria stand as a challenge to the patriarchy in the society. All of them resist the convention that dominates women. They can work equally well independently as males do in everyday life. In fact, they represent the voice for equality between men and women. The drama reflects the social situation in England during the renaissance when consciousness about women’s rights and capability starts growing. The drama shows that women are also courageous, creative and competent if they are given the opportunity. This study is based on qualitative research methodology. So, I as a researcher have consulted various books and journal articles for support. It applies the concept of feminism seeking equality between men and women. This study will be a help for the coming researchers in the area.
Feminism in Shakespearean Literature: Role of Women in Shakespeare's Play, Hamlet
2021
This paper is a feminist based reading and comparison of women portrayed in Shakespearean plays. The reading although compared from the feminist perspective, is not a completely blown feminist reading of Shakespeare’s works. The focus of the study consists of the social circumstances and the wonderful actions of the male characters and how these impact on the lives of the female characters. The relationships between the man and the women characters are often identified by the physical and the psychological deception and their feelings. Men allow their egos and attitudes to persuade their decisions, attack spiritually and destroy virtuous women who are forced to become victims of political intrigues and machinations. This paper also tries to analyse the way Shakespeare tried to portray women as energetic, independent and not inferior to the patriarchal behaviour and nature of men during those times. He enjoyed the element of cross dressing men and women in order to hide the gender di...
2014
This paper compares the depictions of women characters in the plays God of Women written by Sifiso Nyathi (a famous Namibian playwright) and Othello by William Shakespeare, respectively. The two playwrights were purposely chosen on the basis that Nyathi (a Black playwright) writes in the 20 th century, in Namibia, a country in Southern Africa, while Shakespeare (a White playwright) wrote in the 17 th century, in England, Europe. Despite the racial differences and epochs in which the playwrights have lived and written, the paper revealed that, generally, both Nyathi and Shakespeare use a gender-bias style of writing in depicting women characters in their plays. Nyathi's depictions portray women as sex objects for their husband's sexual pleasures in a polygamous marriage, and also as exchange material for wealth. Women also have been portrayed as destitutes who have to stay in subservient conditions at the mercy of their husbands despite the physical and emotional abuse they endure. Shakespeare also portrays women characters negatively as dependent on their fathers in Othello. He portrays women characters as sex goddesses who would compel men to murder their women out of immense worshipping-kind of love for them. Conversely, Nyathi and Shakespeare depict women as intelligent and rational thinkers, as we see Desdemona in Othello defending her position in her choice for Othello before her father. In God of Women the wives of Chief Lewanika embrace MaInonge in solidarity of the oppressed sisters when she collapses after Joyce reveals her secret that she had a son out of wedlock with Chief Lewanika. The analysis concluded that both Nyathi and Shakespeare largely portray women characters negatively in their works, albeit in different ways that are typical of the cultures and epochs in which the authors lived. The analysis also revealed that both Nyathi and Shakespeare make use of literary devices such as foregrounding, metaphors and similes to enliven their plays and to appeal for their audiences' entertainment.