William Shakespeare’s comedy, As You Like It, like many of Shakespeare’s other plays, subverts cultural expectations of Elizabethan society from the beginning of the play. This can be seen with Orlando being the more romantic one during his courtship with Rosalind. But the biggest subversion of cultural norms comes not from Orlando, but from Rosalind, when she decides to dress as a man and flee into the Forest of Arden, after being banished by her uncle. Rosalind’s character is revolutionary, and Rosalind takes entirely unprecedented measures to take charge of her own life, insisting that women will always find a way to make themselves heard. “Make the doors upon a woman’s wit, and it will out at the casement. Shut that, and ‘twill out at …show more content…
When she first hears Orlando is in the Forest of Arden is perhaps the most prominent example of this. “Alas the day, what shall I do with my doublet and hose? What did he when thou saw’st him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? And when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word” (3.2.222-228). Although for much of the play we see Orlando as the hopeless romantic, bits like this remind the reader that Rosalind is equally in love. However, unlike Orlando, Rosalind seems to have kept her rationality, at least for the majority of the play. In her world, being feminine is inherently lesser than being masculine, and it is incredibly powerful to see a female character able to embody emotions associated with both genders. In nearly everything she does throughout the play, Rosalind blurs the line between the gender …show more content…
It is her belief that ultimately, women should have a say in their own lives, and that their words should be respected, which is a belief at the very essence of feminism. “Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her answer unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband’s occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool” (4.1.181-186). Even while she is disguised as a man, and at a time when consent wasn’t even a concept in the minds of most people, Rosalind stresses the importance of consent. The idea that men have to ask for permission before doing anything with their wives was completely foreign at the time, since women were viewed essentially as property. This is perhaps what makes Rosalind more feminist than anything else. Throughout the whole play she fights for autonomy, but in this particular aspect, she brings to light perhaps the most important issue of autonomy, the control over your own body. Despite the problematic and sexist things that Rosalind says throughout the play, she helped lay the groundwork for modern feminism, and introduced powerful concepts to an audience who had never head of them
The characters in the comedy are not realistic, and those that could have been were transformed throughout the course of events depicted. The most trouble with the play, however, seems to come from the representation of the female characters, particularly in comparison with the males. It seems almost that the female characters are written off, rather than merely written out. The male characters of the play are given higher roles, and their characters are followed more faithfully, further proving its chauvinistic composition. The title of the play even suggests a sexist nature in its possible Elizabethan reference to the female genitalia. The play seems to reflect the common thought of its era concerning the social stat...
Not only does Rosalind's change of identity into Ganymede show homoerotic context in the play, but the homoerotic relationship it triggers as well. While Orlando pours love for Rosalind on every of the forest's trees, Ganymede approaches Orlando and assures him he can cure his love for Rosalind by acting like Rosalind. Desperate to express his feelings for Rosalind, "by the faith of [his] love," Orlando agrees to pretend Ganymede is Rosalind (3.3.418). In Stephen Lynch's essay "Representing Gender in Rosalynde and As You Like It," he says that "the enigmatic and potentially homoerotic friendship between Orlando and Ganymede" shifts from the silent background to the fore stage (Lynch, Stephen). The more Orlando woes Ganymede, the more comfortable and confident about his expression of feelings he becomes.
The theme for honour and fidelity apply for both men and women in Shakespeare’s play ‘much ado about nothing’. Honour and fidelity is represented very differently for men and women as it would have been for the people in Elizabethan times. In this first section of the essay, I will be exploring double standards and Shakespeare’s awareness of the double standards between sexes and his feminist approach, the differences of honour and fidelity for men and women and upper class and lower class comparisons.
Imagine being a woman in sixteenth century Europe. Females were raised to believe that they were subservient and that men knew better on any subject. Basically, women had no rights. They were considered property, first “owned” by their fathers and then control was “transferred” to the husband chosen for them. Marriage was not about love, but in most cases, it was a business deal that was mutually beneficial to both families – an interesting fact is that like young women, most young men had no choice in the selection of their future betrothed. These traditions and the gender roles assumed by men and women at that time had an impact on Shakespeare’s writing and performances and a great example of this is evident in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Eds., Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar. New York : Washington Square Press, 1960.
To understand feminism in the novel, one must first understand the feminist lens itself. OWL Purdue describes the lens as “the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (Purdue). Feminism acts as both a commitment and a political movement that wants to end sexism in all forms. Most feminists generally disagree on many topics of the subject, however all have one common goal. These aspects affect The Things They Carry in a plethora of ways, mostly due to the fact that gender roles is a main theme. There are negative and positive aspects of the feminist lens. Positive contains the empowering of women and equality, whereas negative pertains to oppression and unequal rights. Both are covered in The Things They Carried from sex symbols to battle tor...
Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde is an unwieldy piece, the romance is thick, heavy, and conventional. Yet when Shakespeare took it in hand, to rework the tangled web of disguise and romance into As You Like It, he changed much of the emphasis, by both altering and adding characters. Rosalynde is a celebration of love; As You Like It, a philosophical discourse on love..
Nearly every character in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” has a marked opinion on love and marriage which ranges from the romantic Orlando to Ganymede who is quite skeptical of love and endeavors to “rid” Orlando of his petty infatuation for Rosalind.
Even for the briefest moment, Rosalind regretted to dress up like a man. But luckily, using her quick-wit, in Act 3 Scene 3, she cunningly persuaded Orlando into love-counselling by letting him pretend to woo her. She states that love is merely madness and deserves to be whipped. Then she intelligently said about the marks of a love which Orlando did not have.
It is easy enough to discount the presence of conflict within As You Like It, swept away as we are by the sparkling wit of the play, its numerous songs, and the use of stage spectacle (such as the masque of Hymen). But precisely what enables Arden to have such a profound effect on the visitors (Rosalind, Orlando, Duke Senior et al.) is the fact that it is a retreat from the "painted pomp" of the "envious court". The twisted morality of the court, where Duke Frederick hates Rosalind for her virtue, is very much necessary for the purpose of the drama of the play; it is only through the disparity between the court and the Forest of Arden that there is dramatic significance in the movement to Arden and the play of Arden. So while the world of As You Like It is one of reduced intensity (even while the cynic Jacques is loved by the Duke Senior, who loves to "cope him in his sullen fits"), it would be too glib to dismiss conflict from the play.
The play, A Raisin in the Sun, has a very strong view of feminism in the 1960’s. The way that the females are portrayed and talked to in this play is not only an example of how the relationship between a man and a woman in society is unequal, but reflects a particular patriarchal ideology. Throughout this play, as the characters strive to achieve their dreams, the relationships that we see can be seen as feminist and as sexual stereotypes. Feminism is a perspective that views gender as one of the most important bases of the structure and organization of the social world. Feminists argue that in most known societies this structure has granted women lower status and value, more limited access to valuable resources, and less autonomy and opportunity to make choices over their lives than it has granted men.
Many characters undergo a change in William Shakespeare’s play, “As You Like It”. Duke Senior goes from being a member of a court to being a member of a forest and Orlando changes from a bitter, younger brother, to a love-struck young man. The most obvious transformation undergone, is undoubtedly that of Rosalind. Her change from a woman to a man, not only alters her mood, candor, and gender, but also allows her to be the master of ceremonies.
As You Like It starts out in the court, where Rosalind in a female dressed as a female, and Orlando is a male dressed as a male. Rosalind is being treated like a woman and she clearly acts like one. She attends the wrestling match, where her uncle, Duke Frederick, asks her and Celia, her cousin, to try on talk Orlando out of participating in the match. This is the point when Rosalind and Orlando meet, coerce, and begin having feelings for each other. Orlando does in fact defeat Charles, the Duke's wrestler. In this situation, Rosalind is portraying a female with typical female characteristics and Orlando is carrying out his male characteristics. In the court, they are in there true societal roles, but once they enter the forest of Ardenne those roles are dramatically changed.
Shakespeare highlights the difference between reality and illusion. Rosalind embodies the sensibility, the humor and the kind of love that leads to happy, harmonious living. She brings the plot to a resolution when four contrasting romances end in marriage. The focus of the play is her romance with Orlando. Rosalind wants to find a lover without losing her sense of self in the process.
Gender issues and social commentary are especially relevant in published criticism of Shakespeare's As You Like It since the beginning of the 1990's, as evidenced by the number of articles published in scholarly journals during the past twelve years. Janet Gupton's review in Theatre Journal, published in 2001as well as Louise Schleiner's article in the Shakespeare Quarterly in the fall of 1999, both deal with the treatment of gender-subjectivity.