Shakespeare Gender Roles

Shakespeare created his own archetypal structure when he wrote tragedies and comedies. In tragedies everyone dies. In comedies everyone gets married. Across each tragedy and comedy similarities with other tragedies and comedies can be found. That’s because, once again, it’s archetypal literature. The characters especially as far as women go consist of “the weak one”- (Ophelia, Juliet, (although not really because she loved her parents enemies), Hero and many others. Shakespeare created a new type of literature with women that were stronger and rebellious and perhaps had power like Rosalind and Beatrice in “As you like it,” and “Much Ado about

There are many double standards going on with male and female honour and fidelity. With males, they do not seem to have any sexual boundaries. They are not expected to have any fidelity and are excused if they cheat on the partner. Men do not need to keep chastity before marriage. This however is not the case for women. If they do any of these things then they are condemned and are no longer respectable women in society. I think that by Shakespeare repeating these themes throughout the play he shows quite a feminist approach. Rather than go along with the idea that in fact the girls should be punished he genuinely makes us feel attached for those characters. Perhaps an example of this would be Beatrice, although she comes over as a woman who isn’t innocent Shakespeare is careful to keep reminding us she is virtuous.

Others have asserted that the roles of women in his plays were prominent for the time and culture that he lived in,his intent in creating characters to inspire much controversy. Two works, Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night, stand out particularly well in regards to Shakespeare's use of female characters. If you could examine these two plays, you would see that Shakespeare, though conforming to contemporary attitudes of women, circumvented them by creating resolute female characters with a strong sense of self.

In many of Shakespeare’s plays, he uses women to reflect on the social structures of Elizabethan England. Specifically, in Titus Andronicus and A Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare appears to take a very feministic approach on the role of women within society. Although women were not allowed the same privileges as men during this time period, Shakespeare seems to attribute agency to the female characters within his plays. In Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and A Comedy of Errors, he uses allusions, metaphorical language, and explicit imagery to create powerful identities for women in order to critique the patriarchal structure of Elizabethan society.

All these characters serve to point out that neither the males or females are correctly following the gendered roles of the time. Men and women were set to be married to gain status or, simply, to procreate. Shakespeare gives his character’s deeper emotions and feelings as opposed to following the social norm and the expected gender

The male gender roles in Shakespeare’s play are different from the female roles in the play. Men treat women as if they’re there for their own benefit while today, most men and women get married out of love and not for things such as money. From Shakespeare’s play, one of the men named

Furthermore, we notice that very few of Shakespeare 's villains are female. in quite a few of his written pieces, Shakespeare seems to support the view that women are by nature tender, loving, and incapable of the evils which men often commit.

Shakespeare wrote a lot of self-suffient and intelligent female characters. According to (bartleby.com)some critics and other readers of Shakespeare’s plays argue that he treat the women with zero respect. But, he really treats them with a huge amount of respect. They think this for a few reasons. The women in his plays usually die in a tragic death. The play Julius Caesar Portia ( Julius Caesar ) wide kills herself by swallowing hot coals. Portia was respected in

In Shakespeare’s time women were meant to be submissive and considered less equal to their male counterparts - their possessions (this would not go down well today with the women I know). Women in his plays were not displayed as the usual over perfected, only quality being their looks and incapable without a man stereotype, they were real interpretations of women capabilities. They had

In the time `Hamlet' was performed, the Elizabethan audience would not have believed in equality for women, so the play seems far more sexist to us, the modern audience, than it ever would have to the Elizabethans. In our lifetimes women are viewed as equals to men, women can have a job and don't have to take orders from the men in their family. As Paul Thomas says in `Authority and Disorder in Tudor times', `It would seem that the least dignified, that of uncomplicated submission in a brutally male world, was a standard and sensible policy for most females for most of the time'. In Shakespearian times women were viewed only as one of two extremes, whores or virgins. Paul Thomas talks about a bishop in Elizabethan times named

Most of Shakespeare’s female characters are shaped as maids, wives or widows. So, they are fashioned in relation to the marital status: women who are to be married, who are already married or who were once married. An existence outside those categories was not impossible, but it was undesirable. (Kemp 65) Living in a male-centered society, Shakespeare wrote for an audience that enjoyed the stories presenting a “male vision of human experience.” Therefore, the female characters are presented accordingly to their connections to men. (Kemp 66) “Young female characters central to the plays are almost without exception adolescent or young women moving towards marriage (…) When Female characters are mothers, they are more likely to be mothers to sons. (…) Shakespearean sisters are typically siblings to brothers rather than to other females.” (Kemp 66)

Shakespeare and Webster represent the female characters in ‘Hamlet’ and ‘The duchess of Malfi’ by using general themes such as the patriarchy and the social control, the female identity and its independence, this institution of marriage, the expressions of sexuality and finally women shown to be either conformist or transgressive. Men were firmly in control in the Elizabethan and Jacobean era, and the expectations for women were to stay home, cook, clean and raise a family. Women’s status and roles were subject to the Tyranny of patriarchy, they were given strict disciplinary rules to follow whether by law or unspoken norms to prevent from rebellion. Women’s rights were restricted, legally, socially and economically, unlike today were women are more powerful and independent. Today women and men are seen to be equal and women can do pretty much everything a man can do (voting, working, becoming president) although there are many people still today who disagree with women having these rights.

In each of the plays the female protagonist disguises herself as man. However they were not acted by females to begin with as it was an all-male acting company on the Renaissance stage in England during this period. However the women in Shakespeare’s plays are given a certain power although it is through the guise of men and that is why some critics may conclude that perhaps Shakespeare had a limited view of women as did the society he lived in. However he was clearly influenced by society in what he wrote about but instead of refraining** women he empowered women in his plays giving

Female characters, whether they are mothers, sisters, daughters, or lovers, are used as essential roles in every play written by William Shakespeare. In the beginning of both plays, Twelfth Night and Othello, we see strong-willed ladies. Shakespeare enjoys giving women powerful minds and hearts in his works. I think that the female character development between these two plays is that women have the ability to be dominant in a man’s world, but can also lose themselves by becoming submissive to men. While Shakespeare wrote the later play with concepts about consequences of jealousy and not trusting a loved one, he used Twelfth Night to be an example to men to have more compassion for women.

Shakespeare’s works had few females because women were not allowed to act in London in the late 1500’s into the early 1600’s. He however disregarded the standards that were imposed on women of this time. Shakespeare created these daring, strong-willed, quick witted female characters that went against the norm of society. Shakespeare lived during a time person in which the world was essentially male dominated, women weren’t their own people. They were objects that had no freedom to do what they wanted, they followed the rules set by their fathers, brothers, or husbands. He created this almost heroine like character when heroine like women were frowned upon, he broke away from what was expected. He in a way let these female characters have a