William Shakespeare 's Female Characters

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

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.

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.

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.

Overall the Shakespeare brings to light many issues that females dealt with during the 17 century. He talks about women's voices and opinions being suppressed, men being able to hold females as property, the double standard of males and females. With this many readers and viewers of the play, understand the concept that Shakespeare is trying to present to this audience during the time. Although Shakespeare was not a modern day feminist, he still was a feminist in the light of a man during this time period. Bringing characters such as Emilia, who are shown to not take no for an answer, Becca, someone who can stand on her own to feet, and lastly Desdemona, someone who has shown that her loyalty lies with someone who she loves and she has not

“Woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man.” The statement above, a quote by Scottish protestant leader John Knox in his written piece, The First Blast of the Trumpet (1558), proves the role that women during Shakespearean times were forced to bow down to. Women in this society were not only meant to bow down to men and become inequitable in terms of society, women also has basic rights that any living human should have in their lives taken away because of their biological gender. Shakespeare can easily be labeled as misogynist because of the situations in which his female characters are written in.

William Shakespeare constantly filled his plays with cultural and mythological references that engulfed viewers in the story. He was well educated and progressive for his time; however he still had a few downfalls. His main one was that he often portrayed women as objects. Take Othello, for example; Desdemona is rarely seen as a person and often referred to as an object. Thus Shakespeare portrays women as mere possessions and deprives them of their humanity.

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

Throughout history, a system of patriarchy and sexism has over time replicated itself across the world. From this system of male-superiority, emerged misogyny. Referring to the hatred or dislike of women, misogyny has taken many different forms throughout William Shakespeare’s published works. In specific, Shakespeare’s play Hamlet features various examples of misogyny, portrayed by the tragic hero Hamlet and his relationships with the women in his life. This underlying theme of misogyny heavily influences his course of action, and contributes nothing but conflict between his female counterparts and himself.

Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine comment in the Introduction to Shakespeare: Othello that sexism is a big factor  in the play:

Maggie Coviello Jaime Jordan English 242 10/27/14 Shakespeare is known for a multitude of things; His ability to make a play both funny and dramatic, his compelling and complex story lines, his multi-dimensional characters and last but not least, his strong female leads. Some of his female characters are celebrated to this day for being original and fierce in their convictions. One thing that makes his female leads really stand out is the fact that they were created in a time when patriarchy and female submission were norms among society. They challenged gender norms, and though he was not the first to write such strong female characters, he was one of the most widely recognized playwrights of that time.

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.

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.

Shakespearean tragedy is a story of one, or at most two persons. As a rule, they are male protagonists. But to say that Shakespeare’s female characters are shallow, undeveloped and used just as a decoration on the stage is very wrong. Women in Shakespeare’s tragedies have no leading role and they are, to paraphrase Northrop Frye,[1] not tragic heroines, but heroines in a tragedy.

    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