Gender Roles In Shakespeare's Plays

Gender roles in the Elizabeth Era. How were the views on women different in the Elizabeth era compared to today? The Elizabethan era was in the 16th century. And it is also known as the golden era because it was a time of great progress, stability and national pride.

Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, focuses on the tumultuous events that surround a regicide. Despite being the shortest of Shakespeare’s plays, in his critical study of the play A. C. Bradley concludes that due to its vehement nature the audience is left with an impression “not of brevity but of speed” . The principal female character of Lady Macbeth is arguably one of his most contentious. Consumed with intense passion, ambition and greed she challenges the subservient role of the traditional Elizabethan woman. She has disturbed, horrified and intrigued both contemporary and modern audiences alike through her powerful diction.

Ever wonder about gender roles in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew? In Taming of the Shrew, the gender roles affect the characters in a rather negative way, and when they surface in the play, it’s rather shocking. This essay will discuss how gender roles affect the characters in what I believe is a negative way, and how they surface in the play. In this play, the men appear to have a particular idea on how all women should behave.

William Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing plays with gender roles fluidly through the characters’ behavior. Leonato portrays fluid gender roles, a character rarely paid attention to. Taking on a feminine role by breaking the stereotypical male model of the Elizabethan era by having compassion for his daughter. Hero has matured in a male-dominated world and has a lack of a female role model, Leonato takes on a feminine role. The Elizabethan era has stereotypical gender roles, but as the play moves on we see changes in the characters attitudes by saying O Fate!

Juliet is the lover of Romeo, but is from the house of Capulet which is a that time in the middle of a feud with the house of Montague( Romeo’s Family) and in the play she is brung into adulthood quickly. She helps develop the theme of gender roles of females through all the events in which she must disobey her father who was going to disown her for not wanting to marry Paris because she is secretly in love with Romeo, “CAPULET: Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!I tell thee what: get thee to church o ' Thursday,Or never after look me in the face. Speak not; reply not; do not answer me.”

The Elizabethan Era was a time where men were in charge and women and children were expected to obey. Nowadays, men and women have equal roles in society and one gender is not better or smarter than the other. During the Elizabethan Era, men, women, and children all had specific and defining roles. Men had a dominant role in society during the Elizabethan Era. Men could do many things that women were not allowed to do.

As already mentioned, in Shakespeare 's times the man had the upper hand when it came to love, courtship and marriage. The woman, the submissive vessel, had to abide by the decisions made by her father or brother. Yet, in Twelfth Night these gender roles seem to be re-written, in some respects. Olivia 's wooing of Cesario would be one such instance. Sir Toby tells Sir Andrew of his niece that she has sworn not to marry anyone above her in station, age or wit.

What is the first thought that comes to your mind when you see a woman with a man? You automatically think that the man is the one calling all the shots in the relationship. You also wonder why some women act as if they are the man of the relationship. But in the play Macbeth ;Shakespeare wanted to show that gender doesn't mean anything. From the year of 1040-1057; Macbeth was a king that actually existed in Scotland.

Throughout Hamlet, the thoughts, intentions, and actions of all of the characters can be explained through predisposed gender roles in the play. Hamlet is a tragedy in which the main character, Hamlet, attempts to seek vengeance for his father’s murder, while the relationships with him and around him begin to strain. In the play, gender plays a huge role in assuming the capability and worth of people. Women are most commonly depicted as being weak, powerless, and confused, while men are commonly shown as being strong, analytical, and intuitive. Hamlet features Ophelia and Gertrude as the only two female roles, and even then they show little independence from the males.

Shakespeare's lasting effect on the English language and the production of stories is an irrefutable fact. His plays have been replicated a multitude of times and have even been called upon for inspiration in countless cases. From his groundbreaking plays that encapsulate bitterness and betrayal all the way to love and lust, Shakespeare has not only left an impression but paved the way for literature. However, while audiences may have cried and grinned, it is difficult not to see the glaringly obvious negative gender stereotypes that existed at that time within the play Much Ado About Nothing. Hero portrays many of the expected traits of women and their gender roles shown by MacDonald in The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare.

Ancient plays throughout different cultures in history contained all male cast, failing to even cast women as they were deemed inferior. Tradition held that the culture in western societies restricted women’s roles. Even as female characters were indeed written in certain plays, the role were portrayed by a male. They regarded women being able to portray these roles as dangerous and that having men play them “neutralized” the danger it possessed. The Greek’s and the Roman’s both held these views making it impossible for women to be on stage.

While Desdemona is a remarkably strong character, Emilia also displays independence unmatched by any other female in Othello, and there are multiple details of Shakespeare and his time that may have prompted such a portrayal. In Elizabethan England, many women worked behind the scenes of productions, like Shakespeare’s, as uncredited authors and editors (Crowley). Due to their anonymity, nobody can be sure that women were involved in Shakespeare’s plays nor Othello in particular, but there is a genuine possibility that female writers did have leverage. This may have had to do with how Emilia was portrayed as resilient from the time of Desdemona’s death all the way until her own, standing up for herself regardless of the ridicule it caused her (Iyasere). In fact, it even killed her in the end.

In today’s world, gender expectations and roles of men and women are a highly debated topic. However, the reconsidering of these expectations is not a new phenomenon. Set in Verona, Italy, the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare explores the reversal and fluidity of characteristics usually assigned to a specific gender. In this play, two young people fall in love and end up tragically taking their lives as a result of their forbidden love. Shakespeare suggests that men are not necessarily masculine, women are not necessarily feminine, and that when people are forced by society to act the way their gender is “supposed” to, problems will arise.

“And though she be but little, she is fierce” -William Shakespeare. In today’s day and age, one of the greatest topics of debate is gender roles. It is evident everywhere, from cyberspace to the streets of home, from online petitions to marches across the country such as the Women’s March. Shakespeare lived in the Elizabethan Era of England, where Queen Elizabeth I, the virgin queen ruled.

How neatly can categories be distinguished from each other when it comes to gender and sexuality? Formulating such a question not just explores the nature of ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’, but also leads to doubt when it comes to the concept of identity itself—how does one, for example, describe himself or herself, if they do not know for certain whether they are a ‘he’, or a ‘she’? The need to know one’s ‘self’, therefore, seems to be a compulsion to work out which category the ‘self’ belongs to—a compulsion, in a way, to draw boundaries between what ‘I’ am, and what ‘I’ am not. Orsino’s exclamations at the appearance of Viola/Cesario and Sebastian together on stage allow us to explore the nature of these boundaries—if they exist at all—and, therefore,