Forest Of Arden Norms

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

the keyhole. Stop that, ‘twill fly with the smoke out the chimney” (Shakespeare, 4.1.170-174). In short, Rosalind is a feminist (or as close to a feminist as was possible in 1600).
Oftentimes, Rosalind’s status as a feminist (or a precursor to feminism) is revoked because of the misogynist statements she makes throughout the play. “I thank god I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offenses as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal” (Shakespeare, 3.3.354-356). In this passage, Rosalind seems to actively be tearing down those of her own gender, saying that women are “giddy” and therefore irrational. Upon the first glance, or even the first few glances, it almost seems an unnecessarily harsh view of women, especially coming from a woman herself. However, it’s important to remember that Rosalind is not speaking as herself when she speaks like this; she is trying to pass herself off as Ganymede, and by talking in an overly sexist manner, she is trying to deflect any possible suspicion that she is not who she says she is. In Act 3, Scene 2, Rosalind (as Ganymede) is talking to Orlando, and convincing him that she can cure him of his lovesickness. She claims that she will do so by behaving like a woman, “Be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud, full of smiles; for every passion something, and for no passion truly anything, as boys and women are, for the post part, cattle of this color; would now like him, now loath him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him” (Shakespeare, 3.2.418-424). Rosalind does not actually think any of this; she’s speaking to Orlando about women in the same way that she’s heard other men speak about women to each other, in order to sell her disguise.
It could be argued that Rosalind’s disguise as a man itself is un-feminist, but I disagree. To me, Rosalind’s eagerness to dress as a man has less to do with her own misogynistic thoughts, and more to do with appropriating the power that men were awarded without question in Elizabethan society. She jumps at the opportunity to take on the role of a man, and her reasoning is understandable. By taking on the guise of a man she goes from a position of little to no power, to being able to call the shots. “Were it not better, because that I am more than common tall, that I did suit me all points like a man? A gallant curtal-ax upon my thigh, A boar-spear in my hand, and in my heart Lie there what hidden women’s fear there will, We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside – As many other mannish cowards have that do outface it with their semblances” (1.3.121-129). She uses the excuse of being uncommonly tall for a woman, but it’s just that, an excuse. Rosalind itches to take some of the power she’s been denied her whole life for herself, a desire that sparked modern feminism.
Rosalind’s disguise as a man allows her to take charge of her courtship, and she takes advantage of this by trying to prepare Orlando for what marriage will really be like, by trying to shatter his illusions about love and marriage and forcing him to face what reality will be like. “Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbarry cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more newfangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry. I will laugh like a hyena, and that when thou art inclined to sleep” (4.1.154-164). Because of her disguise as a man, Rosalind is put in the unique position of getting to speak frankly and openly about what expectations Orlando has for marriage without appearing to badmouth herself. If she had approached him as Rosalind, and told Orlando that he should expect mood swings and that she would be difficult to live with, he would likely have dismissed it as womanly paranoia. But since she is able to come to him as Ganymede, as a peer, Orlando accepts what she has to say in a way that would have been nearly unthinkable had she approached him as herself.
Although she spends much of the play speaking negatively about women and “feminine” traits, Rosalind is able (when only Celia is around) to let her disguise slip, and embody several of the qualities she warns Orlando he will be exposed to.

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

binary.
Rosalind is a feminist because she is able to take control of her life at a time when it was practically unheard of for a woman to do so.

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

before.