It seems that the majority of the plays we have read have contained male lead characters. The stories always revolve around the men, but what about the women? They should not be ignored even though they are not the feature character of the story. Many of them have significant roles to the storyline, and without them, the play would be quite different. Queen Margaret played an important role in Richard III as a prophesier of the events that were to unfold, and Helena was important to A Midsummer Nights Dream because she was the only one who really thought about the nature of love. Queen Margaret is the old, vehement widow of King Henry VI. She enjoys angrily lurking around the castle and cursing everyone for the dreadful things that have happened to her family. Margaret’s wrath exists for good reason. For one thing, Richard’s family took the thrown from Queen Margaret’s late husband so that Edward IV could be crowned king. In addition to this, Richard killed her son. Margaret is not only a woman, but also a widow, and now she's a charity case without a husband or a son. She feels a terrible grief, and the fact that the murders have not been avenged just makes things worse for her. Though she plays a very minor role in the play’s plot, Margaret is still a very powerful …show more content…
Because she lacks any real physical or political power, she turns to casting curses. The intense rage that she directs at Richard and his family stands for the helpless, righteous anger of all Richard’s victims. She draws our focus to Richard's evil when she says, “Out, devil! I remember them too well. / Thou killed’st my husband Henry in the Tower, / And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury” (1.3.118-120). Margaret’s curses seem to harness the power of divine justice and effectively foreshadow the events in the play. While speaking to Queen Elizabeth, she
1. Explanation: She is jealous of Elizabeth because her and John are married so, she wants to kill Elizabeth to get with John.
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.
She believes he has too kind a nature to kill. With this in mind, she
Love is anonymous. It is superior to everything that matters. Love is a test, that sometimes can be failed, or sometimes can be worth those one- hundred points. Love is messy, and unorganized, it spills over the edges of everyones life. When love is controlled, it is complicated to figure out how to deal with it. It can have a good or bad ending. Confusion can occur when the love is tampered with. It can be saved with re-uniting of the love, and then living a happy ending. Many love connections are effected somehow either that person doing it to themselves, or someone else who mixes the love relationships up . Confusion within the love can cause misconception and turn into a disaster amongst each other. In Midsummer Nights Dream by
To get us started, how do the roles and identities of women in this play compare to that of the male figures?
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.
Shakespeare uses female characters in his plays to illustrate a point or affect the plot, just like in Richard III. The world that Shakespeare shows us in Richard III is a man's world. Women are presented as being on the sidelines to grieve, complain, or bury the dead. Richard views women as instruments, as shown when he announces his plots to the audience. For example, the marriage with Anne and Elizabeth are only moves in his quest of intrigue and power. There are three main females characters that affect the plot with their interactions with the main character. They are Anne, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margaret.
The role of women is portrayed in the viewpoint that they have to rely on others, mainly men, to survive; a perfect example of how many believe that women aren't able to be their individual selves is the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. Within the play the women are extremely dependent on the men around them which causes the women to be portrayed as weak characters in the play. Yet, there are parts within Hamlet that the women unknowingly prove that they are important characters. Ophelia, who Hamlet is deeply in love with, is brought up as though she were a delicate flower which in the end leads to her death. Throughout the play Ophelia is just told what's right and what's wrong instead of making her own viewpoints.
A Misummer Night’s Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare. In this play there are multiple themes however the most evident theme is love. Why is love an evident theme? It is an evident theme because the play commences with two Greek mythology characters─ the Duke of Athens, Theseus and Amazon queen Hippolita planning their marriage. However as Theseus plans his marriage he has to help Egeus persuade his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius. Unfortunately both the Duke and Egeus failed to persuade Hermia into marrying Demetrius so the fairies (another set of characters. The fairies in this play consisted of goddess of chastity and Queen of fairies, Titania and King of fairies Oberon and his assistance Robin Goodfellow) decide
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.
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;
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.
In many of Shakespeare’s literary works one can find multiple themes that reflect or question our reality. He accomplishes this by using figurative language such as metaphors and similes. Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream encompasses many themes and apply them to certain characters or through communication between multiple characters. Helena portrays themes of love, betrayal, jealousy, and gender norms in Midsummer Night’s Dream presenting them through her speech and behavior. She depicts the challenges of a woman and also the flaws of human nature. In Act 2 scene 1 and Act 3 scene 2 Helena uses a metaphor twice which emulates these themes presenting us a broader understanding of her representation within the play and the play as a whole. Following are lines from Helena.
Women in Shakespearian plays have always had important roles. Whether they create the main conflicts and base of the plays, or bring up interesting proper and cultural questions, they have always been put in challenging situations. Some women are stronger than others, and their effect on the play is different for each one. One woman who plays a very important role in Shakespeare's plays is Cleopatra, in Antony and Cleopatra. Cleopatra is the dominant force in the play. Cleopatra takes on masculine qualities such as being bold, `alternative masculinity' and manhood of stronger determination. She is also viewed as a perfectionist. During the play many critics notice that Cleopatra and Antony switch roles, by Cleopatra acting more masculine, and Antony acting more feminine. Antony becomes jealous of Cleopatra because sometimes she acts more masculine than he does. Cleopatra is not dependant on anyone. Some critics say that Shakespeare discriminated against women because of his actions. He did not allow women to have a role in his play, nor let them have any say in his writings. He had boys or men play the parts of women until later on in his playwriting. Shakespeare favored men during his time period and was also very sexist.
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