Shakespeare treatment of women. The Role of Women in Shakespeare's Time 2019-02-02

Shakespeare's evolving attitudes towards women

Desdemona is the last of the characters to evaluate, however she is also the most important. . The second theatrical woman emphatically takes centre stage. There can be no doubt that the former type of procedure represents the earlier, the latter the riper, mind of Shakespeare, in the treatment of love. The play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare explores the many different perspectives of love through a multitude of characters, each unique in their own way. Her father begs the Duke, Theseus, to use the full weight of the law to make her comply and she is told that if she does not marry Demetrius her punishment will be death. One of the great ambiguities in this play is how much influence… 3231 Words 13 Pages Composition March 14, 2012 Betrayal and Loyalty in William Shakespeare's Plays William Shakespeare is one of the most recognized playwrights in the history of man.

Shakespeare's Treatment of Women in His Plays Essay

From times of severe incarceration to the near-equality of today, many valuable generalities can be drawn about societies from their treatment of women. Then Bertram is mentioned; she learns that he is known, and has made advances to Diana; presently he passes by, and now at length Helen deliberately and unhesitatingly takes measures to fulfil his 'impossible' conditions. A lot of the time, Elizabethan women would die during childbirth and because of that, they would make arrangements for someone to look after their children. But no halo of sublime self-sacrifice surrounds Ophelia's renunciation, for her or for us. However, He was not interested in violence, but rather in love. Wealthy women, in particular, were expected to produce a male heir, as all inheritance was passed through male lineage and female relatives were not permitted to inherit land or titles. Consequently, social expectations were placed on women to be chaste, silent and gentle in demeanor and submissive and obedient to male authority Ranald 131.

7 Types of Female Characters in Shakespeare's Plays

What might Shakespeare be trying to say in this play about women in his time? Hamlet is a good example of a son's treatment of his mother reflecting how he will treat the woman he loves because when considering Hamlet's attitude and treatment of the Ophelia in William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, one must first consider how Hamlet treated his mother. I have one question, there will probably be section where you have to explain why you came up with. It is a mark of the easy-going habits of his art in comedy that he never threw aside this rather elementary device, though subjecting it, no doubt, to successive refinements which become palpable enough when we pass from the Two Gentlemen to Cymbeline. Many scholars continually argue that Othello consists of a male dominated society in which the women play an insignificant role. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

The Portrayal of Women in Othello

William Shakespeare gives us a view of early signs of gang conflict in the early age of Verona, Italy. And both in Comedy and Tragedy he makes use, though not largely, of other than the 'normal' love for definitely comic or tragic ends. She will be placed in a tomb and Romeo will come and take her away. Her identity diminishes until she fits into the stereotype of the silent woman. And precisely where he is greatest, in the sublime ruin of the tragedies, love between the sexes has on the whole a subordinate place, and is there is most often fraught, as we have seen, with disaster and frustration.

Shakespeare's Treatment of Love and Marriage

Even though, the woman in the narrative remains anonymous, she eventually becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper that is located in her bedroom. We seem to approach for once the heroic renunciations of love in the name of principle or country which impress us in Corneille and Racine in Polyeucte or Berenice. Throughout this play, the main character, Hamlet, consistently patronizes and belittles both his mother and his previous lover. Elyot's Governour 1531 , was well known in Elizabethan England, and fell in with the fantastical world of Fletcher's Romanticism. With parental acquiescence it was authorized by law that girls in Elizabethan times were able to get married at 12 however it was unusual for that to happen.

Othello

It was nearer akin to the boyish humour of mimicry. His decision to kill her, he claims, is to prevent her from a further transgression - 'Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men'. When Emilia goes out of her way to help her husband Iago do evil, he barely even thanks her. A widow following her murdered father's coffin, to be wooed, there and then, and won, by his murderer. It is thus possible to lay down a Shakesperean norm or ideal type of love-relations.

The Portrayal of Women in Othello

In this case there was little scope for the undoing of soul which is the habitual theme of Shakesperean tragedy. There is no conflict, no weighing of love and empire, as great alternatives, against each other, in the manner of Corneille; nor does Shakespeare take sides with either; he neither reprobates Antony, like Plutarch, for sacrificing duty to love, nor glorifies him, like the author of the Restoration drama, All for Love, or the World Well Lost; still less does he seek to strike a balance between these views. Still less defensible artistically is Isabel's renunciation of the convent to marry the Duke. Her attackers cut out her tongue and remove her hands to prevent her from naming her attackers. Charmian tries to pacify her by telling her 'Good madam keep yourself within yourself', but Cleopatra escapes the bounds of self-composure and the repression of self-hood. Metaphorically then she dies for her love which cannot be tainted, not from Othello's hands. Years back in the 15, 16 century women were more behind than men, the society was male dominating and the main purpose of women was to serve their men.

Women in Othello

Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, The Roaring Girl, ed. Men in this time believed that women should stay home while it is acceptable for them to go out with their friends and have affairs with other women. This dispute can be reinforced either way, however I believe Hamlet was truly in love with Ophelia. The play ends with the couple confirmed in their love and their decision to marry. The wives, on the other hand, encounter the husband's unjust suspicions, or brutal slanders, without a thought of revenge or reprisal. Desdemona is the last of the characters to evaluate, however she is also the most important.

Shakespeare's Treatment of Women in His Plays Essay

But the audacity of the young Shakespeare showed itself in another way. Ophelia is used throughout the play, by both Hamlet and Polonius in their plans against one another, without her knowledge. However, he actually treats them with a great amount of respect. My hypothesis is that windspeed will affect the rate of temperature loss through sweating. Her strength lies in her calm assertiveness and her determination to control her own destiny rather than hand it to the men around her. Some of them, like Rosalind and Beatrice, virtually create and sustain the wit-fraught atmosphere of the play single-handed.