The Twelfth Night By William Shakespeare

With social and cultural stereotypes in this era, men were viewed as more powerful while women were portrayed as weak. William Shakespeare tries to interpret the roles between genders by having characters of the opposite sex. In the play Macbeth, William Shakespeare uses rhetorical devices to demonstrate Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s switch in traditional gender roles, which arise from the consequences for each character’s actions and speech.

Shakespeare's works have persistently influenced humanity for the past four hundred years. Quotations from his plays are used in many other works of literature and some common phrases have even become integrated into the English language. Most high schoolers have been unsuccessful in avoidance of him and college students are rarely afforded the luxury of choice when it comes to studying the bard. Many aspects of Shakespeare's works have been researched but one of the most popular topics since the 1960s has been the portrayal of women in Shakespeare's tragedies, comedies, histories and sonnets.

Gender stereotypes are not a modern notion and as such expectations and limitations have always existed for both men and women. Fortunately women, who have formerly beared great burdens of discrimination, now have very liberated roles in society as a result of slowly shifting attitudes and values. Shakespeare was integral in challenging the subservient role expected of women in the 16th century. Throughout the play, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, women are expressed as powerful characters who behave, speak and live in a way that breaks away from the conformist role of females during the 16th century. Therefore, the submissive stereotype expected of women in Shakespearean time is confronted and defied through

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.

Imagine living 400 hundred years ago and you were thought less of a man. Man that would be hard for us 20th century girls! During the time of Shakespeare women were be seen as the weaker sex. They had little control over there destinations and always depended on males. Men on the other hand were seen as tough beings and expected to take care of everything. Shakespeare's prove these gender roles wrong throughout his writings. One of his writings is Macbeth. All through this play women were looked as fragile and insulted each other not being manly enough. Over all Shakespeare saw women as extremely powerful beings even if society neglected them. He act knowledge them throughout his work and proved they were not always scapegoats or the tools

Love is such an abstract and intangible thing, yet it is something that everyone longs for. In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the difficulty of love is explored through the obstacles that characters have to face while pursuing their loved ones. Those characters that are in love in the play were conflicted with troubles; however, the obstacles of love do not seem to stop them from being infatuated with each other. The concept of true love is examined throughout this play. By creating obstacles using authority and a higher power, Shakespeare examines the power of love. Through Hermia and Lysander’s loving words, it is reasonable to conclude that love conquers all if you believe in it.

Identity and Feminism: Themes such as Gender identity are illustrated in Shakespeare’s plays through the use of costuming and role playing. In texts like “Twelfth Night”, Shakespeare uses a female character named Viola who is the noblewoman disguised as a boy named Cesario, this creates a comedic gender exchange situation where the role reversal goes wrong and leads to mistaken

Each sex has its’ specialty, both sexes must be equal; people in general must be equal. By studying Shakespeare and by going deeper through analyzing and getting preoccupied with, we learn how to “brainstorm” the people, the culture and the ethics of that era and create opinions and thoughts about those centuries. In my opinion, Shakespeare is a modern, a contemporary artist and writer of his era who “sends” and passes messages through his plays. Each one of us, the readers and learners of Shakespeare, creates a special, unique opinion about Shakespeare and literature in general. We do not all think in the same way, people are unique. In my opinion Shakespeare is a great writer, revolutionist for his era, not being afraid to write and express his thoughts, maybe because he had the “advantage” of being a man. We do not know what we would learn today if Shakespeare was a woman. Maybe somebody else would be the Shakespeare of that era, or just somebody of that

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”(I.i.240-241) In this quote from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, love is referred to as being blind. In this popular comedy by Shakespeare, Lysander loves Hermia and Hermia loves him back. Helena, whom is Hermia’s best friend, is in love with Demetrius who used to love her,but now loves Hermia. Egeus is Hermia’s father and strongly prefers Hermia to marry Demetrius, although she does not approve. Egeus seeks the help of the Duke of Athens in order to force his daughter into marriage with Demetrius. Love causes the characters of this play to shut out anything and everything besides what they want. The four lovers in this play, Hermia, Helena, Demetrius, and Lysander find themselves trapped into situations due to their love preferences. In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, the main theme of the story is that love is blind and can take you on a journey of many unexpected turns.

Being that A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a Shakespearian comedy where passion is a significant theme. It is perceived in a variety of ways such as passion for revenge, recognition, and for love, which have the potential to blur the lines between the levels of social hierarchy. Shakespeare uses a variety of characters such as Helena, Nick Bottom, and Oberon to express the theme of passion and its significance in the play.

The role of woman in the society has always been really controversial, whether it was 400 years ago or now. Shakespeare's two very famous comedy plays, The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice challenge a very serious social issue, the role and importance of woman in society. We all know the stereotypical image of woman in the society but Shakespeare questions the society on these thoughts through his plays. While Shakespeare expresses his ideas in a very unique way in each of his plays, this issue is common in both plays and is portrayed very similarly. Whether it is the way woman are treated, portrayed or judged, Shakespeare repeats the same idea through difference acts and events between the two comedies. There are some

Main Idea: Shakespeare was not a sexist: All though the main three females in the play were seen as important and contributed tremendously towards the plot of the play. The readers see Shakespeare pushing the ideology of men and women being equal with the slow occurrence of many plots towards the play, and how it all unravels itself. These were proven in the play by when;

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night can ultimately be viewed as documenting the progressive relationship of Viola and Orsino from strangers to lovers. Underpinning all the events that take place involving Orsino’s desperate attempts to secure Olivia’s love is a blossoming friendship between Viola (as Cesario) and Orsino despite their differences in class. Subtle hints are made to Viola’s disguise though they are not strong enough for us to dismiss consideration here of how Shakespeare uses this pair to present the possibility of homosexuality or at least unconventional love.

William Shakespeare’s work has helped to pave the way for theatre today. From his entertaining jokes to his more serious moments, I can’t think of a moment in life he hasn’t missed. His plays are performed in high schools, community theatre and professional theatre all around the country and the world. Although every part of Shakespeare’s time was played by a man, regardless of their gender. Women through Shakespeare’s time have evolved from being dainty ingénues to strong females who fight for what they believe in. Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Rosalind in As You Like It and Cordelia in King Lear are some young women characters who have evolved from being dainty ingénues who only cared about men to free thinking and spirited women. Young Women in Shakespeare’s time have evolved from being dainty ingénues to being strong forward-thinking women throughout Shakespeare’s history.

    When one considers Shakespeare’s female characters, one has to remember that the plays were written in a time when women were considered weak-minded creatures who were apt to make bad choices if given the freedom.  Shakespeare, for the most