William Shakespeare 's Play As You Like It

While many will agree that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is critically acclaimed to be one of the most entertaining and well-liked pieces that he has written, there tends to be a discrepancy over how the characters in the play are portrayed when it comes to the importance of gender roles. After reading James C Bulman’s article over the Globe’s more recent performance of Twelfth Night and Shakespeare’s original written version, I realized that there are many ways that this famous piece has been portrayed and each has its own pros and cons.

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

Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling… (Sandburg 1948). In these few lines, Sandburg is trying to tell us that the city is full of these tool makers and stackers of wheat but these people (hard working people) make up the city of Chicago so these people ARE Chicago. He summaries by saying that Chicago is the “City of the Big Shoulders” (Sandburg 1948). When you imagine someone with brad shoulders, you see a very strong muscular person. This image is also supposed to be seen in the city; the city is strong, dominate and full of personality.

In a patriarchal society, women are expected to conform to social restrictions by demonstrating reverence and obedience to the males in their lives. Shakespeare's tragic play, Romeo and Juliet, explores the effects of patriarchal authority exerted over women and how the patriarchal structure left no escape from it, save death. Through Juliet, Lady Capulet, and the Nurse, Shakespeare establishes a common understanding of this type of society, but illuminates three different reactions to the social oppression by portraying the responses of a passionate lover, an idyllic housewife, and an attendant.

It is 1972 and feminism is spreading throughout global society like wildfire. Earlier in the 60’s, feminism had already begun to make its mark in terms of legal equality such as suffrage; however, around 1972 came the second-wave feminist movement, which tackled a wide-range of more ethical issues such as: sexuality, family, the workplace, and reproductive rights. During this time of social refinement Judy Syfers decided to make her mark on the feminist movement with her essay, “Why I Want a Wife.” Within her work, Syfers utilizes literary devices such as repetition in order to emphasize the importance, and unjust views of women in the household, while also utilizing appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos in order to further emphasize her views on this domestic issue.

    Othello represents a prime example of Shakespeare's ability to develop relationships between the sexes so as to demonstrate those relationships' weaknesses. In Othello, the sexes are divided by misconceptions and ego- centric views of the opposite gender. The men of the play, in particular Othello, maintain a patriarchal, chivalric notion of the sexes, while the women of the play yearn for more involvement in their husbands' affairs. So it is that the thrust of the play emerges from "the opposition of attitudes, viewpoints, and sexes." (Neely 214)

Shakespeare 's complex play Othello holds numerous pressing issues within its intricate layers that seem to leap out to modern society. One such issue seen by many is the representation of women. Women within the play can be characterized as submissive possessions and temptresses. This ideology, though commonplace in this time period, appears controversial to the modern eye as we deconstruct the characters of this play. This dominate patriarchal society present within the setting merely conditions this belief further as it is prevalent within the characters dialogue.

Othello, by William Shakespeare is well known for its richness in literary content and elements pertinent to societal ideas. Moreover, women are portrayed in Othello in ways that confirm, but also contradict their treatment in Shakespeare’s time. Both female action and language represent these ideas such as expectations for a wife and expectations for how a woman is to act. That said, there are many other lines spoken by these characters that defy the expectations placed on women at time. Overall, the feminist critical lens allows a reader to understand Othello and the manner in which it is slightly sexist and controversial. This lens allows the reader to observe both discrepancies of how women are treated, and common characteristics found

Perhaps the theme that is most recurrent in William Shakespeare's plays is that of filial relationships, specifically the relationship between daughter and father. This particular dynamic has allowed Shakespeare to create complex female characters that come into conflict with their fathers over issues ranging from marriage to independence. At the same time, the dramatist exposes his audience to the struggles women face when attempting to assert themselves in a misogynistic world. Through the daughter-father dyads portrayed in The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare highlights the effects that gender constraints have on female characters while simultaneously drawing attention to the sharp contrast between both relationships.

Gender identity and its roles in 17th and 19th century England were regarded as rigid fact — definite and unyielding. The adherence to these social protocols was of utmost importance. Masculinity was viewed as being dominant, assertive, and bold, whereas femininity involved beauty, obedience, and chastity. The theatre became a method of challenging this rigid social concept. Both William Shakespeare’s As You Like It and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest explore these public values through their characters. Wilde and Shakespeare’s use of gender reversals satirize the traditions of social order, marriage, and gender responsibilities at the time, thereby revealing that gender is not absolute.

Exulting high up in the shadowing tower, bong-ding-dong-ding-dong-bong - the bells in her place striking tuneably, hunting up, hunting down, and working its way back to lead the chime over again. Bursting through the once convent quiet atmosphere, groaning the poplar trees, whirling away through the sleeping cities went the music of the bells of Valaam’s Monastery. The constant soft padding of footsteps echoed the looming walls, in a nonstop cycle, up the stairs, down the stairs. And through the arched windows, gleamed sunlight, illuminating the rich golden chalice that stood in its classic monumental position.

However the theatre itself is a place of fluidity and artifice where "nothing that is so, is so. " I will discuss the ways in which Shakespearean theatrical conventions override Elizabethan notions of the female role and in Twelfth Night, establish female characters not as two-dimensional Elizabethan archetypes but as tenacious and distinct characters with a strong sense of

Shakespeare uses language to explore the controversial gender roles. His use of two distinctively opposing female

“How would a modern audience view this play in a different way to an audience in Shakespeare’s time, particularly in relation to the role and status of women and attitudes to marriage and courtship?

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.