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Gender roles shakespeare
Gender roles in William Shakespeare
The portrayal of female characters in Shakespeare's plays
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Gender in As You Like It
One of the most intriguing aspects of the treatment of love in As You Like It concerns the issue of gender. And this issue, for obvious reasons, has generated a special interest in recent times. The principal reason for such a thematic concern in the play is the cross dressing and role playing. The central love interest between Rosalind and Orlando calls into question the conventional wisdom about men's and women's gender roles and challenges our preconceptions about these roles in courtship, erotic love, and beyond.
At the heart of this courtship is a very complex ambiguity which it is difficult fully to appreciate without a production to refer to. But here we have a man (the actor) playing a woman (Rosalind), who has dressed herself up as a man (Ganymede), and who is pretending to be a woman (Rosalind) in the courtship game with Orlando. Even if, in modern times, Rosalind is not played by a young male actor, the theatrical irony is complex enough.
The most obvious issue raised by the cross dressing is the relationship between gender roles and clothes (or outer appearance). For Rosalind passes herself off easily enough as a man and, in the process, acquires a certain freedom to move around, give advice, and associate as an equal among other men (this freedom gives her the power to initiate the courtship). Her disguise is, in that sense, much more significant than Celia's, for Celia remains female in her role as Aliena and is thus largely passive (her pseudonym meaning "Stranger" or "outsider" is an interesting one). The fact that Celia is largely passive in the Forest of Ardenne (especially in contrast to Rosalind) and has to wait for life to deliver a man to her rather than seeking one out, as Rosalind does, is an interesting and important difference between the two friends.
These points raise some interesting issues. If becoming accepted as a man and getting the freedom to act that comes with that acceptance is simply a matter of presenting oneself as a man, then what do we say about all the enshrined natural differences we claim as the basis for our different treatment of men and women?
Just as Jing-Mei found what made her Chinese, Lindo discovered what made her American. "I was so much like my mother. She did not see how my face changed over the years. How my eyes began following the American way"(293). She is a mixture, no longer one hundred percent Chinese, yet she has held her culture with her throughout her life in America. "Not only traditional and not only modern, not just Chinese and not just American, but Chinese-American"(Reece). This is the same discovery that Waverly and Jing-Mei come to, they finally understand were their mother's have come from and the history brought with them from far away. And the mother's best intentions are no longer like the illusive mountains covered in fog, left in China.
Throughout history many famous concerto pianists composed various types of music. One of those pianists was named Johann Sebastian Bach. J.S. Bach was arguably one of the best composers in Western music history. Born in Eisenach, Germany to a family of musicians, Bach grew up playing the organ and keyboard. J.S. Bach’s music was characterized as a classification of Baroque music. Baroque was an era of dominant European styled art and music in the 17th century. The term baroque is “applied to art of any time or place that shows the qualities of vigorous movement and emotional intensity associated with art in its primary meaning.” Bach’s famous Baroque style was a combination of many notes, simple motoric rhythms, and a steady shift of underlying harmony.
Towards the end of the book, there is a definite line between the differences of the two generations. Lindo Jong, whose daughter, Waverly, doesn't even know four Chinese words, describes the complete difference and incompatibility of the two worlds she tried to connect for her daughter, American circumstances and Chinese character. She explains that there is no lasting shame in being born in America, and that as a minority you are the first in line for scholarships. Most importantly, she notes that "In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you." (p. 289)
This paper will look at the different conceptions highlighted by Bulman in his article through the use of different methods used by the actors in the play. Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare captures the different conceptions of gender identity and different sexualities within the Elizabethan period.
The fact that the fictional mothers and daughters of the story have unhappy marriages creates a common ground on which they can relate. However, marriage has different meanings for each generation in this book. In the mothers’ perspective, marriage is permanent and not always based on love. Especially with their marriages in China, which was a social necessity that they must secretly endure in order to be happ...
Rosalind falls in love with Orlando at first sight (as is standard in Shakespeare), becomes erotically energized, and remains so throughout the play. She's delighted and excited by the experience and is determined to live it to the full moment by moment. One of the great pleasures of watching Rosalind is that she is always celebrating her passionate feelings for Orlando. She does not deny them or try to play games with her emotions. She's aware that falling in love has made her subject to Celia's gentle mockery, but she's not going to pretend that she isn't totally thrilled by the experience just to spare herself being laughed at (she even laughs at herself, while taking enormous delight in the behaviour which prompts...
From the beginning, Macbeth is a play filled with contradictions. In the opening scene, the witches, who are women with beards, declare, “ fair is foul and foul is fair”(1.1.12 Shakespeare). In this disarranged and chaotic world, the conventional gender roles are sometimes unseated as well. However, when they are unseated, negative repercussions always ensue. Furthermore, in Macbeth, Shakespeare implies that traditional gender roles are the most beneficial and should be followed invariably.
Between the 1600s and the 1700s, many would think more of Kings or Queens who ruled their vast kingdoms for years upon years rather than a great composer such as Johann Sebastian Bach, a man who greatly contributed to Germany and many other specific regions of Europe during his life. Born in 1685 Eisenach on March 21, Bach was a member of one of the most excellent musical families of all time as, for over 200 years, the Bach family had birthed some of the most superb composers and performers, many supported by churches, the government, and nobles for their extraordinary works ("Wikipedia"). However, having been orphaned so early on, Bach grew up in the home of his brother, Johann Christoph Bach, in Ohrdruf. During his early life, he attended schools of dance, acted as an organist on many occasions, particularly in Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Weimar, as well as a court music director in Cöthen, and, later in his life, in 1723 to be precise, he became the grand choirmaster of St.Thomas in Leipzig for twenty-seven years and oversaw many events of the school, going so far as to divide the students into four individual choirs and recruiting the talents of the citys professional musicians and university students (pg 1 - 14, Eidam). He continued as a choirmaster until the end of his days, writing various and exquisite pieces that were preformed in front of many audiences, quite a few of which were preformed by those of the four individual choirs he created while he lead them through each piece (pg 1 - 14, Eidam). Though this may not seem as important as the rulings of Kings and Queens at the time, Bach's contribution to his homeland of Germany and its people was mostly certainly memorable and worth consideration. In fact, because of his contr...
Society in the16th century was highly structured. Women of the upper class were expected to be trophies for their husbands. The men were required to hunt, lead, and go into battle. If one chose not to follow these dictates, the rest of society would question, look down on, or even punish the deviant. The prominent author, William Shakespeare, placed this subject into comedy and tragedy plays with dramatically different outcomes. In Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare makes fun of stereotypical gender roles by establishing Beatrice and Lady Macbeth as the dominant characters over Benedick and Macbeth through imagery, dialogue, and character personalities.
The Joy Luck Club is a novel comprised of the stories of four Chinese-immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters. “Each of the four Chinese women has her own view of the world based on her experiences in China and wants to share that vision with her daughter. The daughters try to understand and appreciate their mothers' pasts, adapt to the American way of life, and win their mothers' acceptance” (“Joy,” Novels). Due to the fact that the daughters were born in America, many things that would be simple for most mother daughter relationships, was a vigorous task. “…the tensions between mothers and daughters and between U.S. and Chinese influences are constantly expressed in bicultural ways. The mothers are firmly rooted in their Chinese cultural heritage and are comfortable with being Chinese. The daughters are awkward with their own Chinese features, the Chinese language, and their repressed Chinese spirituality. The mothers identify with their ethnicity, but the daughters are ambivalent about who they are” (Soitos). The mothers want the best of both worlds for their daughters, as most mothers would. However, it is not as simple a task in the world they were living in. “The American-born daughters have their own choices...
Celia and Rosalind are fairly happy in the court of Celia’s father, Duke Frederick. However, much to her surprise, the Duke banishes Rosalind from his court because of his dislike for her. Celia, not allowing her beloved cousin to "go it alone", decides to accompany her to where ever she may roam. They decide to search out Rosalind’s father, Duke Senior, in the forest of Arden. Before they depart, Rosalind decides that the forest, being a treacherous place full of danger, demands that she dresses as a man, while Celia remained a woman.
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.
"The androgynous woman literally incorporates the independence that the male was designed to exemplify prior to the introduction of woman, but the male who depends on a woman becomes effeminate and is perceived as missing something in the outline of maleness," (Rose, 25). While in the forest of Ardenne, Rosalind is dressing in and taking on the male persona.
William Shakespeare and the new millennium seem to be diametrically opposed, yet his works are having a renaissance of their own after 400 years in the public domain. Why have some major film producers revisited his works when their language and staging would seem to be hopelessly outdated in our society?Perhaps because unlike modern writers, who struggle with political correctness, Shakespeare speaks his mind with an uncompromising directness that has kept its relevance in this otherwise jaded world.
I have to confess I was searching for some inspiration when I came across a delightful text by David Brooks about the deepest meaning of Passover, deeper than the feeling and desire for freedom, which includes the willingness to overcome fear. According to Brooks, through “kissing, storytelling and singing” (free interpretation).