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William Shakespeare 's Romeo And Juliet And The Merchant Of Venice

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Shakespeare Confronting 16th/17th Century Gender Norms

William Shakespeare was a poet, playwright, and actor, and is often regarded as one of the best writers to have ever lived. He is considered to be the English national poet. He wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets during the late 16th and early 17th century. During this time period, England had an absolute patriarchal society, where males dominated all aspects of life. Women had very few rights and were treated very poorly. However, Shakespeare liked to write plays that challenged traditional thinking and norms. In this paper, I will explore the gender norms/expectations for women during Shakespeare’s time and how he conformed or didn’t conform to these norms in two different plays, Romeo and Juliet and the Merchant of Venice. To understand the gender roles during the 16th and 17th centuries one must first understand where some of these gender notions originated from. England, during the 16th and 17th centuries was a very religious state with almost everyone practicing the Protestant or Catholic sect of Christianity. The concept that women were inferior may have originated because of traditions from Christianity and Judaism. In the Old Testament, God created man first. Then he created Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs. Eve arguably committed the first sin ever when she ate the fruit after God had told her not to eat it. She had been tempted by the devil, who was in the form of a serpent, who told her she would gain

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