Over the course of this semester, the class has read and discussed four plays. The four plays include Madea, Oedipus, The Tempest and The Importance of Being Earnest. These plays all have strong female and male characters. Around the time all of these plays were written, women were not looked upon favorably. Women were viewed as superficial, deceptive and dangerous.
Female Roles Most of the female roles we read about were mothers. In the play, Madea Euripedes portrayed Madea as a revengeful psychotic character. She is seen to be the wife and to fulfill her wifely duties day after day. Madea goes against her spousal role and motherly role to get revenge on her husband who left her for another woman. Although Madea may be portrayed as violent
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Jocasta is also depicted as selfish by committing suicide after finding out that Oedipus is her son. She is also selfish by leaving her four children with no mother after she commits suicide. In The Tempest written by Shakespeare, Miranda is depicted as the sweet innocent and obedient daughter of Prospero. She is also seen as desperate when she meets Ferdinand and in three hours of meeting one another, they are engaged. Miranda is also naïve since she has been on a remote island for the past twelve years and the only men she has seen is her father Prospero and her father’s servant Caliban. In the play In the Importance of Being Earnest written by Oscar Wilde, there are four females depicted in this play, who is Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen, Cecilly and Miss Prism. Lady Bracknell is depicted as a snobby lady who only values the social status of others. She is a powerful force because she controls whether or not her daughter Gwendolen and Jack can get married. She is also represented as a conservative and proper lady in the Victorian society by the way she acts, dresses and talks. Gwendolen is Lady Bracknells daughter and she is depicted as …show more content…
Jason in the play Madea is depicted as a cheater and unfaithful by leaving Madea for another woman. He is also seen as power hungry by leaving Madea for the King’s daughter Glauce. In the beginning of the play Jason is seen as the protector of his children and the household but then he abandons them to be with Glauce. Oedipus in the play Oedipus Rex is depicted as being naïve as believing that he is running away from his fate by going to Thebes, but in reality, he walked right into his fate. Oedipus is also depicted as a murderer by killing the King of Thebes Lauis. He is also seen as selfish because once he found out he married his mother and his children are children of incest he stabbed his eyes out leaving his four children without a father. Prospero in the Tempest is represented as an unsympathetic character because he uses black magic to control people. Prospero is also seen as revengeful since his brother took away the Dukedom of Milan from him. Prospero is also seen as very manipulative by calling his brother and friends to the remote island. At the end of the play, he is depicted as a much more sympathetic and forgivable character with redeeming characteristics. Caliban is Prospero’s servant on the remote island. At first, Caliban is seen as this innocent creature that was forced by Prospero to be his servant. Caliban is also seen as revengeful in plotting a murder against Caliban to get his freedom of the island
The nucleus of the plot in Shakespeare's The Tempest revolves around Prospero enacting his revenge on various characters who have wronged him in different ways. Interestingly enough, he uses the spirit of Ariel to deliver the punishments while Prospero delegates the action. Prospero is such a character that can concoct methods of revenge but hesitates to have direct involvement with disillusioning his foes. In essence, Prospero sends Ariel to do his dirty work while hiding his involvement in shipwrecking his brother, Antonio, from his daughter, Miranda.
In the play ‘Othello’ written by William Shakespeare, we see not only the main male character leads. But we also see the female characters, Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca. These three women were portrayed in ways that showed them being inferior to the other male roles as well as society during the Elizabethan Era. But Shakespeare made each of these individual ladies characteristics quite unique to one another having the traits of a feminist. Even though in the play we read how the male characters did somewhat control them and made them look weak compared to them, there were moments where Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca stood up for themselves.
Feminist critical lens examines certain texts with a primary focus on both gender’s relationship with each other and how such relationships demonstrate effects towards beliefs, behaviors, and values. This critical lens also examines a patriarchal-centered society and how such society define and interact with women with an emphasis on stereotypes of both genders that are present and evident in the text being analyzed. William Shakespeare’s Othello can be scrutinized through the feminist critical lens. A deep analysis focused on feminism of the play Othello paves way for the judgement of different societal status of women in the period when the play took place, the Elizabethan society. Othello is a best fit that demonstrates how men were
In William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Prospero lives with his daughter Miranda on a deserted island. On the surface, he appears to be a benevolent leader doing his best to protect and care for the inhabitants of the island, especially for Miranda. On closer inspection, however, Prospero plays God, controlling and creating each individual to fit the mold he desires. He takes advantage of his authority over the people and situations he encounters while wearing a facade of integrity and compassion to disguise his wily intentions and to retain love and respect.
The feminist school has various goals when being used to scrutinize a piece of literature. As Gillespie points out, historically texts were written by males with primarily male protagonists, and thus, the male sentiment is most dominantly expressed in many works of literature. The lessened representation of women in literature is usually confined to typical stereotypes of the historical period. This can be seen in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, and this will be further explored and discussed. Through the feminist lens, women’s presence and portrayal in the play, as well as the common stereotypes about women in Shakespearean society, can be studied carefully, despite the centuries that have passed between the play’s conception and the present. Additionally, as stated in Literary Theories: A Sampling of Critical Lenses,
The role of motherhood in the movie is powerful than the play, which we can see in Act 4, Scene 1 when Prospero approves the love Miranda and Ferdinand declares, however points out a harsh warning to Ferdinand. In the movie, because of the female character, it is easier to make the connection of mother and daughter. By switching the gender in this movie, it lead women characters have a sexual power and empowerment, which was none in the play caused by the pressure made in the Elizabethan Era. Taymor, director of “The Tempest” adds; “I didn't really have a male actor that excited me in mind, and yet there had been a couple of phenomenal females—Helen Mirren being one of them—who [made me think]: 'My God, does this play change? What happens if you make that role into a female role?” (Roger) By casting Prospera, instead of Prospero changed the main themes such as power and sexual empowerment, also the voice of Shakespeare in Prospero, whom he is sometimes occurred as.
Othello, by William Shakespeare is well known for its richness in literary content and elements pertinent to societal ideas. Moreover, women are portrayed in Othello in ways that confirm, but also contradict their treatment in Shakespeare’s time. Both female action and language represent these ideas such as expectations for a wife and expectations for how a woman is to act. That said, there are many other lines spoken by these characters that defy the expectations placed on women at time. Overall, the feminist critical lens allows a reader to understand Othello and the manner in which it is slightly sexist and controversial. This lens allows the reader to observe both discrepancies of how women are treated, and common characteristics found
Throughout the length of Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello there is a steady undercurrent of sexism. It is originating from not one, but rather various male characters in the play, who manifest prejudicial, discriminatory attitudes toward women.
Othello represents a prime example of Shakespeare's ability to develop relationships between the sexes so as to demonstrate those relationships' weaknesses. In Othello, the sexes are divided by misconceptions and ego- centric views of the opposite gender. The men of the play, in particular Othello, maintain a patriarchal, chivalric notion of the sexes, while the women of the play yearn for more involvement in their husbands' affairs. So it is that the thrust of the play emerges from "the opposition of attitudes, viewpoints, and sexes." (Neely 214)
Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello features sexism as regular fare – initially from Brabantio and Iago, and finally from Othello. Let us in this essay explore the occurrences and severity of sexism in the drama.
Throughout many pays and novels, women have had important roles of helping form the main characters, in the way they think, move or change the story. Women have always been subordinate to men all through history, but in plays, novels, short stories, etc, they have been given large enforcing roles, showing the power within women. William Shakespeare and Sophocles use guilt, pride, and influence to demonstrate the importance of the women’s role to support the main characters in both the plays of Macbeth and Antigone.
In the play, Othello, there are many different representations of characters and archetypes. The women of the play are seen as symbolic representations of how the men in Shakespeare’s generation saw women. The women of the play are all individual characters with different personalities. They are seen as objects but stray from the average mold. Shakespeare converts these women into the play with roles that represent the strong stereotypes of women and how they are not what the rumors portray them as.
In the book “Gender Trouble” (1990), feminist theorist Judith Butler explains “gender is not only a social construct, but also a kind of performance such as a show we put on, a costume or disguise we wear” (Butler). In other words, gender is a performance, an act, and costumes, not the main aspect of essential identity. By understanding this theory of gender as an act, performance, we can see how gender has greatly impacted the outcome of the play in William Shakespeare’s Othello. From a careful analysis of the story, tragedy in Othello is result of violating expected gender roles, gender performance by Desdemona and Othello, and the result of Iago’s inability to tolerate these violations.
An example of this is when Miranda states, "you have often Begun to tell me what I am but stopped And left me in bootless inquisition." (1.2.35-40) it becomes clear that Miranda is the inferior character in this situation and this is the result of the dependency she relied on from Prospero. Miranda 's need for attachment is a main reason why she becomes inferior to the make characters in the play that plot action in solidarity.
After viewing the 2010 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, directed by acclaimed cinematic visionary Julie Taymor, several key features are easily identifiable regarding the changing dynamics of power and agency found present therein. First and foremost would be the fairly significant genderswap of Prospero (here called “Prospera”) from a man to a woman, thereby carrying with it the often presumed contexts, connotations, and consequences of such a change. “Prospera” almost takes on the role as a sort of vindictive siren; now as the spurned wife of the late Duke of Milan, quite seamlessly preyed upon through her conspirators invoking the more negative or outdated perceptions of women’s inferiority, branding her as a heretic and a witch.