William Shakespeare 's ' The Lord Of Find Refuge And Empowerment '

The female role during Shakespeare’s era is that of daughter, wife, or mother. There was no greater ambition to which women could aspire, especially for the women of the upper class. The only gain a woman could make was to find a good match for a husband. In Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare portrays the perceived faults, flaws, and fidelity the women of his time faced through the characters Hero and Beatrice. In Much Ado About Nothing, Hero and Beatrice, while cousins, are opposite sides of the same coin; and are as different as day and night. Hero is the height of respectable femininity as a quiet and dutiful daughter. While Beatrice’s witty, outspoken and opinionated personality is a mark against her beauty. Both of the women represent two very different versions of a female, yet, in the end, both of them are defined by the act of marriage. Stressing that the highest that these women could reach was for a husband.

In the modern 21sr century, the roles and behaviors expected of individuals remains analogous despite gender. This ideology stems from the preceding movement in equality, which preaches that differences of sex appear insignificant. Despite this notion, there remains distinct differences in the physical and psychological makeups of both men and women. In most cultures, certain duties remain associated with specific genders. With this in mind, Shakespeare’s Macbeth heightens the supernatural evil possessing Lady Macbeth as she condones murder for her own selfish ambition, while in Shakespeare’s time women were regarded as peaceful and full of feminine sympathies. This anachronism with the reality of Shakespeare’s day, illustrates the immense sense of wickedness and abnormality emphasizing her character’s influence on her husband and the plot of the play. In contrast, Macbeth appears to some extent a more acceptable evil due to a greater compliance with the gender standards and moral transition during the Shakespearean era. Shakespeare utilizes numerous literary intentions in order to express these diverse levels of evil to provide an element of depth behind the mental reactions and deteriorations of the characters until their final decease into the complete darkness of death.

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

Another way women are portrayed as weak throughout the novel is when Elizabeth is treated like a possession and Caroline is “saved”. Elizabeth is treated like a possession when Victor says, “All praises… as made to a possession of my own” (23) and when Victor refers to Elizabeth as “My more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only” (23). Here Victor’s words make Elizabeth sound like a glass doll, fragile, because she is being treated like a possession. The story itself takes place in a patriarchal society which shows the reader how men are a dominant figure in their culture. In a patriarchal society, men are powerful people and women are obedient to their every wish. Women are raised to follow this culture, because it is a part of their society, for example Elizabeth. The quote also implies how Victor’s opinion of Elizabeth is the only one that matters because she is his only. She is almost depicted as though she has no identity except as Victor’s pretty belonging, “I looked…upon Elizabeth as mine –mine to protect, love, and cherish” (23). Also, Elizabeth is not the only women to be depicted as weak; Caroline Beaufort is also weak as well. When her father becomes poor

Shakespeare’s Katharina, of The Taming of the Shrew and Beatrice, of Much Ado About Nothing, are very similar characters.  Each is plagued with unrequited love, and depressed by their inability to woo the suitor of their choosing.  Neither will accept the passive female role expected by society. Yet, both women seem to accept their role as wife by the conclusion.  Upon further examination, one will find that Beatrice is a much more complex character.  One would have to agree with the critic who said, "Katharina is a character sketched in bold, rapid stokes, with none of Beatrice's sophistication, verbal brilliance, or emotional

In the book The Color of Water by James McBride and the play Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare are two independent women who have been hurt in their lifetime by someone close to them. They both play major roles in their respective works, Ruth McBride is the mother of James McBride who is the author of The Color of Water and Beatrice is the cousin of Hero is the main female role in Much Ado About Nothing. They are both smart and resourceful as shown in both stories but also pained by events of their past. Ruth is a single mother who's a widow of two men and takes care twelve children on her own. Beatrice is a sharp tongued young lady who is seen as one of Shakespeare's strongest female characters, she is caring and

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.

In Macbeth, one of the most tragic and well known plays, William Shakespeare changes women’s part in society. During this time period, women are known to be both mentally and physically weaker than men. Women are called to be only housewives. Shakespeare reflected the image of women in society by giving the men bigger leads in his plays. Only in a few of Shakespeare's plays did he give women strong leading roles. Macbeth is one of the few plays where women play a more powerful role than the men. In Macbeth, he gives the women unusual traits like manipulation and betrayal. In William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, women like Lady Macbeth , the trio witches, and Lady Macduff portray non-feminine traits.

One of the most intriguing characters from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing must be Beatrice. An intelligent, well-spoken (and, perhaps more interesting, outspoken) young woman, she is an almost exact opposite of her cousin, Hero. What makes Beatrice so different than what one expects of a woman during Shakespeare’s time? Why did Shakespeare decide to make her such a strong female character? It begs the question of what women were actually like in the Tudor era, and if she was really so radical a character.

Feminist theory aims to understand the nature of inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations and sexuality. To do Feminist Research is to put the social construction of gender at the center of one 's inquiry. Feminist theory is about seeing gender as a basic organizing principle which profoundly shapes/mediates the concrete conditions of our lives. In the play The Tempest, by William Shakespeare Miranda is a perfect example of a woman 's role in literature from a feminist theorist perspective. In The Tempest, Miranda 's prescribed gender role and physical stature account for her naturally being subordinate to males.

It is true that the majority of women in the 17th century were housewives (Lambert). However, in Shakespeare’s eyes, this did not translate to inferiority of women. Instead, he believed that society’s flawed thinking was both unjust and dangerous. He saw women for what they were worth: humans capable of performing and becoming something everyone else could. Regardless of their genders, woman could be just as assiduous, shrewd, and vindictive as their male

When observing gender in our society, women and men are stereotyped with specific roles. Men have always been seen as the family’s main source of income whereas the women take care of their home and children. However, Shakespeare challenges these gender roles in his play with the three female characters Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. While all three are independent, powerful women and even lead their armies into battle, the men seem to be foolish and weak such as King Lear and Albany. Furthermore, Mira cel Batran makes a point in her essay, “Feminist Reading of William Shakespeare’s King Lear”, that although women are regarded as dependent on men, Shakespeare explains that it can be the exact opposite. The men seem to depend on the women such as King Lear depending on Cordelia and Albany depending on Goneril. Shakespeare, in his play, King Lear, portrays women who are strong and intelligent and men who are weak or overpowered by female characters, challenging the societal belief that women are inherently less than or dependent on men.

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.

Shakespeare challenges the assumption that men hold more power than women do. He subtly hints that the power men posses is superficial when Jessica dresses like a boy, and later when Nerissa and Portia disguise themselves as men in The Merchant of Venice. Masculinity is merely a costume that can be donned or doffed at will; therefore its associated power can be removed and redistributed as well.

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.