Stereotypes In William Shakespeare's Play

Shakespeare pushes the gender boundaries in Much Ado About Nothing as men were considered very much superior to women. Expectations of how they should behave was based on gender and class in society. Women were seen and not heard and were referred to constantly throughout the play as objects, untrustworthy,submissive and unfaithful.

All throughout Illyria, there is romance, passion, royalty, and an immense amount of gender stereotypes. William Shakespeare imagines the kingdom of Illyria to have very traditional norms for both women and men in his play Twelfth Night. In Scene 2 of Act 1, Viola, recently rescued from a shipwreck, hears about a duke named Orsino and instantly comes up with a plan to get closer to him. Her plan is to disguise herself as a boy who she will name Cesario and become one of Orsino's’ attendants. Right off the bat, we begin to see gender stereotypes. Why must Viola become a man in order to work for the duke? Elizabethan society “molded women into the form of the dutiful wife and mother” (Elizabethan Women). Viola could not have served duke Orsino as a woman because as a woman she was expected to work at home and be either a “dutiful wife [or a] mother”. Scene two prepares the audience for the idea of gender throughout the rest of the play. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is very traditional play due to its ideas of gender stereotypes in Elizabethan society.

Stereotypes are commonly held generalized beliefs that most or all individuals sharing a given trait also should or do share other attributes assumed to be associated with aspects such as race, religion, and physical attribute. While stereotypes can erroneously shape people’s views of others, they can also influence the stereotyped individuals’ behavior as people often attempt to conform to these flawed images, especially in regards to gender stereotypes. Shakespeare’s great play Othello uses its main characters to embody the characteristics of the stereotypical females and males according to society’s liking. The stereotypical woman is loyal and faithful to her husband, while the male stereotype possesses strength, control, and dominance.

More often than not, men are presumed to be more foolish than women. However, in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this stereotype is defined, as the girls are more foolish due to their curiosity and ambition for love. Throughout this Shakespearean play, women show that they act more foolishly because they fall in, run away and chase after love. Hermia, Helena, and Titania are all examples of the foolish effects love have on women.

According to a quote by The Atlantic, America is still a “patriarchal community” (Cohen 1). The majority of humans live in a society influenced by men and have little to no understanding of a matriarchal society because it is not around. For centuries, women have fought for equality and it is a reoccuring theme in literature. This theme can show how people critique and analyze many works of art. Countless people can read a text and depict it differently, from the beginning to end. This depends on what critical lens they view it from, allowing people to comprehend the different ways literature is written. There is many different critical lens to choose from. An example of one of the critical lens is the feminist viewpoint. The feminist theory, analyzes the nature of gender equality. This approach shows how women can compare to men. This can be done politically, socially, or economically. In William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, he can be seen going against the feminist theory. This lens will affect Hamlet’s two main, female characters Gertrude and Ophelia. While viewing Hamlet through the feminist theory lens, many male characters can be seen as being, aggressively, dominant; creating the women to have many stereotypes.

“Beware of your stereotypes and prejudices, they can trap you in a box and make you miss what life has to offer you”─Med Yones. One has to see past the stereotypes in life, just as one should do for A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. This literature masterpiece entails a quarrel of a pair of lovers caught entangled in a treacherous web of tainted love and magic. This comedy, viewed through the archetypal literary criticism lens─which focuses on the stereotypical aspects─, makes the audience wonder and push beyond the boundaries of the stereotypes with the tale. Combined with its other elements, A Midsummer Night's Dream is more entertaining and meaningful when viewed through the archetypal literary criticism lens; such as in Act 1: scene 1; Act 3: scene 2; and Act 5: scene 1 in both the printed text and the 1999 film versions.

I will be honest with you I had a lot of trouble enjoying the play, like I said the dialect gave me trouble, plus my seats were not that great. I did however like the movie quite a bit, but I realize I am a product of a different generation as well. I have been brought up around TV and movies rather than plays

Some critics and other readers of Shakespeare's plays argue that he treats women with disrespect. However, he actually treats them with a great amount of respect. Shakespeare has been criticized by many modern writers for his portrayal of women.

The play was well interpreted by all whom were involved. Steven Wrentmore, the Director, kept the 1920’s feel by dressing in all 1920’s costumes and everyone spoke as if they were living at the

Sexism is the stereotyping and discrimination based upon gender. Typically steered towards women, it has played a large part in not only our society today but in the past as well. In the play The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, it is shown in the treatment of the women by their male counterparts. It is most prevalent in the way that fortune-seeking Petruchio goes about taming his aggressive and sharp-tongued wife Katharina. By examining Petruchio’s actions and Katharina’s reactions towards his efforts at taming her, once can see that the play is indeed sexist.

As Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, the fiction was set in the Renaissance era and therefore the persona of women was reflective of that period. The natural stereotype of that time viewed women as weak, fickle, and dependent of the men in their society and subject to the decisions that men make for them. It was an exceedingly common depiction and very rarely was it proven wrong to the men of that time. Women’s rights were nonexistent in this time period so it wasn’t unusual for the portrayal of women to be so negative and offensive. Given that women of that age had known nothing else they attempted to fit the stereotype to please the ‘natural order’.

The literature world for the English Renaissance period was filled with adventurous stories of chivalrous knights going on epic quests to slay dragons and save the princess, win her affection and skirt off happily ever after. Many poems were also written during this period that told of the beauty of a woman or the overall beauty of nature. Shakespeare, one of the most well known writers of all time was very influential to the literature world now with his theme of the Shakespearean Sonnet, as well as Petrarchian Sonnet adding more diversity.

Shakespeare’s work is among the hardest to read because of its supposed complexity and sophistication. The language used in the Early Modern Era is different than that of the Post Modern Era. Audiences that saw the performances were aural learners and were able to pinpoint certain tones and facial expressions that readers may not detect through words. Watching the plays performed provided better feedback than readings do (Palfrey 10-11). Metaphors, implicit or explicit, are figures of speech that help compare two unlike things and are not designed for literal intake. Yet, with Shakespeare’s work, metaphors should be taken literally. According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, however, this technique of comparison allows metaphors to simultaneously highlight and hide certain attributes and/or qualities about the thing(s) being compared to (12-13). The highlighting and hiding of metaphors gives readers more insight into what Shakespeare may have meant at the time or even more so in what context did the people of the Elizabethan Age use language (Palfrey 11). Two important components of metaphors that do the highlighting and hiding are the vehicle and the tenor; each can be implicit or explicit as well. The metaphor in question emphasizes both the importance and unimportance of Lavinia’s character.

The Theme of Appearance vs. Reality in William Shakespeare's Works Characters within one of William Shakespeare's greatest tragic plays,

Shakespeare and the members of the Elizabethan era would be appalled at the freedoms women experience today.  The docility of Elizabethan women is almost a forgotten way of life. What we see throughout Shakespeare’s plays is an insight into the female character as perceived by Elizabethan culture.  Shakespeare’s female characters reflect the Elizabethan era’s image of women; they were to be virtuous and obedient and those that were not were portrayed as undesirable and even evil.