Women in Shakespeare's World
In Shakespeare's Time…
The female
characters found in the plays of Shakespeare are some of the typical
representations of the women in the Elizabethan England. They were
representations of both the situations of women at that time and also the icons
of various issues in the society. In a country which was under the rule of a
monarchy, especially a Queen, the representations were potential of carrying
various interpretations. It would have been a great challenge for Shakespeare
to portray what he really wanted to, through these women characters in his
plays.
Looking at
the way Shakespeare portrays women in plays like The Merchant of Venice and
Twelfth Night, it seems that despite the fact that the “ideal of women’s
chastity, silence, and obedience was proclaimed far and wide in early modern
England” the women of Shakespeare are strong and outspoken, still ultimately
yielding to male power, but firm and cunning enough to outwit the opposite sex
in the most critical situations.
Viewed within
the context of their original environment, expertly crafted as productions
designed to appeal to the strongly male-dominated society of Shakespeare’s
time, a time when women weren't even allowed on stage, we as readers (and
viewers) cannot deny that plays like The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night
were in fact written as uproarious comedies, and that perhaps a large part of
their comedic value was included in poking fun at willful women who were bold
enough to step beyond the limits of their roles in society and take on or
challenge the well-defined roles of the male world.
High-born
women were presented as “possessions” to be passed between fathers and
husbands. In most cases, they were socially restricted and unable to explore
the world around them without chaperons. These women were controlled by the men
in their lives. Broadly speaking, female characters that sexually aware are
more likely to be lower class. Shakespeare allows them more freedom to explore
their sexuality, perhaps because their low-status renders them socially
harmless. However, women are never totally free in Shakespeare’s plays: if not
owned by husbands and fathers, many low class characters are owned by their
employers.
Looking at it through the 'Present Lens'.
Comparing
the Elizabethan time, the era in which Shakespeare lived, to modern times, a
lot of customs in society have changed drastically. Some are extremely similar,
as well. However, today, in different parts of the world, customs could be more
similar to Elizabethan times than in the United States. Marriage and the role
of women have made some serious headway. In many countries, women can do
anything from ruling the nation to having full-time jobs. Marriage in the
Elizabethan Era was based on power and wealth, not true love. Many marriages
were arranged to grant wealth and higher social stature to families. Often, the
day of the wedding was the first time the couple met. Women were taught that
they were subordinate to men and that disobedience was an offense to their
religion.
The law
gave men that power, so one could say that having a wife was like owning a
piece of land. A career for any women was unthinkable. It is of much interest
looking at a comparison of both Shakespeare’s time and the present and
analyzing how relevant and adaptable will be the women characters of
Shakespeare in the modern times. It is also important how these characters are
represented and shaped at present.
Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra
The play, Antony and Cleopatra, has been crafted by
Shakespeare with the title including Cleopatra in it. With this equal billing with
Cleopatra in the title, the tragedy has been providing various interpretations
of Cleopatra through the years; varying at different periods of time. At times
she has been looked as the ‘manipulative seductress’ and at times a ‘skilled
leader’. There is also the understanding that she has to be looked at as a mere
object of sexuality than imposing capacity for great leadership.
The play Antony and Cleopatra, being male dominated,
signifies Cleopatra as the strong female character. Thus, it has to be
understood that Shakespeare had to draw few clear lines in this play as he
signified Cleopatra as a strong female character amongst the male characters
dominating the play. But the characteristics which he employs on to the
character of Cleopatra has to be looked in. What characteristic of her did
Shakespeare wanted to claim as strong? Or was he looking at a comparison to
balance with the Elizabethan society which had a different idea about a ‘strong
woman’. It would have been a challenge for Shakespeare to present this
character in an extra ordinary way, because of the known fact that, even the
female characters were played by male actors. It is indeed challenging.
Surprisingly Cleopatra is shown having power in the play.
She is placed between the poles of a decadent foreign woman and a noble ruler.
But she is also placed on a platform as a queen for whom Antony risks his
reputation. Placing Cleopatra in the middle, Antony is given the option of the responsible
duty of his state or his love for Cleopatra. Right from the beginning of the
play to the end of it, she is described as a lustful ‘gipsy’; a description
that is repeated by the chorus throughout the play. Cleopatra is labeled a
‘wrangling queen’ a ‘slave’ an ‘Egyptian dish’ and a ‘whore’; she is called
‘Salt Cleopatra’ and an enchantress who has made Antony ‘the noble ruin of her
magic’.
Since Shakespeare has presented her as a woman in power and
as a woman in love, it would have been a challenge for him to provide the much
needed balance of both these elements in Cleopatra. The playwright has also
gained this power in her character through the exposure of her open sexuality.
She is notable for her strong sexuality and her sexual relation with the
world’s most powerful men at that period of time. She is one of Shakespeare’s
few female characters for whom sex is not a submission, but a testament to her
own glory.
Her decision at the end of her life, to suicide, is not out
of her helplessness; but out of her pride and the decision also shows the power
of the woman in her. Chose suicide than becoming Caesar's token of power.
Ophelia in Hamlet
Ophelia is one of Shakespeare's gentle-hearted female
character. She is also at times referred to as Hamlet’s unfortunate lover. As a naive young woman who is lost in the
world surrounding her, she is obedient and childish; yet maiden through her
desires. Ophelia is involved in a world which is tensioned and torn fateful
decisions.
Shakespeare presents her as a woman who is incapable to fit
in.; whose is unable to understand her father and her lover. She is torn
between her father’s death, her lover’s ignorance of her deep feelings and her
brother’s treatment of her like a child. Placing this woman in the middle of a
triangle made of these men’s life, Shakespeare presents her in his tragedy.
We find in her pleasing character, that the medieval precept
that father’s word is unquestionable rules over her. But also her Renaissance
sense of romantic love also governs her. It was a great struggle for her to be
obedient to her father and also to be truthful to her love. Throughout the play
Ophelia proves that she cannot live in both of these world. But she was also
aware that her choice will lead her to her fate. It was this inner struggle of
any girl of her age in that society Shakespeare wanted to convey; he also draws
few lines of the status and standards of families which cannot at any time go
beyond their level; Hamlet being a prince and Ophelia’s dearest lover.
Ophelia is also looked as a victim of circumstances.
Throughout the play, we find Hamlet constantly sending Ophelia mixed signals,
because he does not know whether he can trust her. In addition to Hamlet's
bizarre behavior, Ophelia's character is easily influenced by the opinions of
her father and her brother. Hamlet's
mother, on the other hand, loves Ophelia and would be happy to see the two getting
married. Ophelia has to deal with all these voices and does not count her own
feelings into her own decisions. Hamlet's behaviour towards Ophelia had a much
greater effect on her mental stability than any other character in the play.
Considering Hamlet’s rejection of his love for Ophelia, we
are also reminded of the point that Hamlet started pretending that he no more
loves her; which indirectly meant that he loved her before. This becomes a
counter point in which even Ophelia’s madness is questioned. Through all these
struggles, Ophelia had to live a life which she herself could not draw the
clear lines and limitations for her.
Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
Can we say, that this lovely girl of Shakespeare’s most
famous tragedy, was to be discussed on the platform of maturity and immaturity?
Having almost made her way to reach her fourteenth birthday, Juliet is
introduced in the play as an obedient, naïve and sheltered child.
But exceptionally, many of the women of her age were getting
married, Juliet had never given a thought of it. Responding to Lady Capulet
about Paris’s interest in marrying Juliet, Juliet dutifully responds that she
will try to see if she can love him, a response that seems childish in its
obedience and in its immature understanding of love.
Juliet’s first meeting with Romeo provides her a full-force
toward adulthood. Though profoundly in love with him, Juliet is able to see and
criticize Romeo’s rash decisions and his tendency to romanticize things.
Juliet’s development from a sheltered and naive girl into a self-assured,
loyal, and capable woman, is one of Shakespeare’s early triumphs of
characterization. It also marks one of his most confident and rounded
treatments of a female character in his tragedies. Juliet makes the transition
from an innocent adolescent to a responsible adult during the course of the
play, which is observable when we compare the beginning and the end of the
plays. The commitment for the word ‘love’ from Juliet has two different angles
in both the poles of the play. However, there is a point of view that she has
been forced to mature too quickly; for the sake of love she had for Romeo. The
emphasis throughout the play on Juliet's youth, despite her growing maturity,
establishes her as a tragic heroine, which results in the end of the young
relationship.
When she meets and falls in love with Romeo, she is prepared
to defy her parents and marry Romeo in secret. But we find Capulet demands his
right as her father to marry her to Paris, threatening her with disinheritance
and public shame, which was a typical regular scene in the Elizabethan society.
A girl as young as Juliet had to be kept on the alarm that her decisions were
not supposed to be made by her; it should be made from the authority over her.
Can we say that the power of love transformed her from a
submissive child to the height of womanhood? Shakespeare cleverly uses this
play to portray an immense truth which he would have liked to openly proclaim;
the maturity earned by the need and the acceptance and understanding of love.
Even though the tragedy ends with the lovers giving their lives for the sake of
each other, still the question, whether it was a matured and true love remains.
‘Marrying the man whom one loves’, looks like, has been a women’s struggle in
Shakespeare’s era.
Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream
One of the young lovers in this play; a young Athenian
woman. In the beginning of the play we observe Hermia’s conflict with her
father Egeus, who wants her to marry with Demetrius, but she refuses to marry
the man her father has chosen for her, since she loves Lysander. Shakespeare
would have chosen such a background to this young woman, because he had a
‘dream’ in his mind to present with her; a mid-summer night’s dream. He had to
handle the fantasy tale with the reality of the society.
We could say that this is a reflection of the society of
that time, an authoritarian and patriarchal society in which husbands, fathers,
and aristocrats are the dominant voices. It is from such society Shakespeare
prefers to take this character so that he will be able to look at what the
heart of love strives for and what is there in reality. Challenged by her
society of male dominance Hermia is able to oppose her father’s choice and to
demand for her own love even though she knows that her demand is never going to
be considered. But, as we have seen, Hermia opposes her father’s choice even
knowing that if she does not obey she will be punished with death or she will
be enclosed in a nunnery. This is one place, where we need to look at
Shakespeare’s Hermia as his revolutionary attempt to show the need for women to
stand up for themselves.
Marriage is an element that appears in most of Shakespearean
comedies, but as we observe in this first scene it is not easy to reach it
because of parental disapproval. In relation to this we could say that Hermia
is a brave character because she opposes her father, she also argues with the
Duke saying that Lysander is as worthy as Demetrius, and even she remarks that
she prefers to live as a single woman than to marry a man that she does not
love. So we can see that love here is challenging authority. This also
indicates that at times women felt that they were able to live by themselves;
even though the status of a women in then society was weighed by their father’s
or husband’s position in the society; especially of husbands for a woman of her
age of getting married.
Hermia is also a well-educated, well-spoken and a lady
trained in politeness. So, although we have seen that at the beginning she
confronts her father; on the other hand she is respectful with him in the rest
of matters. So it may be that Shakespeare even wanted to show how the aspect of
love is understood in a well-educated and polite woman like Hermia in his
society. Eloping may be looked at as a coward act, but when a woman like Hermia
makes such a decision to elope with Lysander, the idea of love and its place in
the society is looked in a different angle.
Desdemona in Othello
As a play which relates to the way how marriage and
relationship was looked at in the days of Shakespeare, Othello displays the
place of women in the institution of marriage. Even though many perspectives
have laid importance to reflect on the life of Othello, we are also encouraged
and invited to have a look at the position of Desdemona, as the wife of this
man who meets fall by his ‘tragic flaw’.
Desdemona is presented by Shakespeare as the prototype of
womanhood. As a charming woman she is ready to face the challenge of facing the
unknown of marriage relationship being destroyed by the mystery which surrounds
Othello, her husband. Unfortunately she becomes the victim of this tragedy.
This influential women falls in love with a man who is older, poorer and uglier
than her. We can find her appreciation for this man; for his life of tragedy
and her respect for his endurance of pain in his life. In period of time when
the women in the higher class preferred to get married to men who would bring
in grand fortune and wealth, we find Desdemona exposed into the world of
Shakespeare as woman with such exceptional characteristics.
The loyalty of the marriage relationship is questioned by
Shakespeare at this juncture of such an exceptional presentation of a graceful
woman. This can also be understood as Shakespeare’s representation of the place
women had in the opportunities to defend them.
As we read through the play, we find that both male and female,
appreciating Desdemona’s honesty and goodness. She was a loyal wife who would
do anything for her husband. Even during the times when Othello was falsely accusing
her of adultery and sin, Desdemona defends him. She was an unselfish woman who
was defending her husband till the last day of her life. Even when Othello
kills her with the rage of jealousy, she does not blame him; instead she
claims, “nobody, I myself committed this tragic deed. Her death does not
destroy the ideal of marriage. Shakespeare cleverly posts the idea of
recognition of honesty from the women’s perspective. Emilia is used as a tool
to enrich this question. We find that, in spite of Emilia’s loyalty to her
husband, she is even ready to expose her husband Iago’s evil plans and
conspiracies, so that she can defend the honesty of Desdemona.
Shakespeare also displays Desdemona’s brave and rational
characteristics when she says stands up to her father and says that, like her
mother, she should be showing for duties for her husband. She boldly requests
the Duke’s permission to go to Cyprus with Othello, so that she won’t be a
‘moth of peace’ when her noble husband is fighting for the country. Even though
this act of Desdemona would be interpreted in the present days as her
acceptance for male domination, this also shows the demands raised in front of
a woman in Shakespeare’s time. Even in the higher classes of the society, women
were supposed to be serving men as it is their ‘duty’.
The end of Desdemona’s life, though tragic, her role in the
play and her death are significant of a woman’s challenge to live a free life
in spite of her loyalty to her husband Othello, until her death bed.
Lady Macbeth in Macbeth
Most of the remembrance of Lady Macbeth in theater is her
presence with a candle in her hand and her words “out, out damned spot”. Many
interpretations look at her as a ‘sexless’ character who has forgotten that she
was born a woman. As the play progresses, we find that evil and ambition
gradually taking control over her soul and her deeds.
The play which begins with the prophecies by the witches to
Macbeth, continues with Lady Macbeth trying her best to make those prophecies come
true in Macbeth’s life and her ambition of becoming the Queen. This is one
important aspect which has to be questioned in terms of gender. Shakespeare
clearly shows in the latter part of this play that Macbeth totally relied on
the prophecies of the witches; and until he saw the Birnam Woods moving and
realizing that Macduff was from his
mother’s womb ‘untimely ripped’, it was these prophecies by the witches which
kept him moving on with courage. But, unfortunately the play displays Lady
Macbeth as the only person who was behind all the evil plans towards the
fulfilling of prophecies. The influential woman in Macbeth’s life is portrayed
as the path to evil desires. She is understood at times as the companion who
accompanied Macbeth towards this tragic end. She is looked as the person who
provides the drive and the will behind her husband’s plotting. As a result, we
understand, that she becomes insensitive to murder and her soul is emptied by
feelings. She does not even hesitate
killing the King.
Shakespeare also exposes the inner struggle she had as a
woman. Comparing herself to Macbeth; her own husband, she identifies herself as
stronger and daring than Macbeth. She even goes up to the extent of questioning
Macbeth’s manhood. Her strong will and the ambition of taking up the throne,
destroys Macbeth’s ignorance and motivates him to look towards the throne.
For the audience she looks as the person who directs and
controls the whole crime stage. At every moments when a crime is committed
there are more chances for the audience to get reminded of Lady Macbeth, as the
force behind all these. In that perspective, the memories of the witches are
also carried throughout the play until the end, because it is understood that
it is their prophecies which sparked the earliest evil desires in Macbeth’s
ambition and which was followed by Lady Macbeth.
One perspective, looking at it, which would be worthy is,
why Shakespeare decided to have such a representation? Was it because that in
his period of time, women, though not given the same status of men, still
worked behind the scenes to ensure that they gain their correct places in the
society. Since a woman’s status in the society was defined by whose daughter or
wife she is, Shakespeare would have used Lady Macbeth as an example to show
this part of women in Elizabethan society.
The end of her life shows that her assurance of her own
security fades as days pass by and the internal turmoil fills her soul and
marks her behaviour. Her death symbolizes the end of the struggle of a woman
who wanted to achieve things in her life through the glass ceiling of male
dominance.
Contributing sites.
http://earlswynn.hubpages.com/hub/Shakespeares-Women
Image credits: Google Images
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