Gender Roles and Women's Status in Shakespeare's King Lear

William Shakespeare’s King Lear, however, takes a different approach. During Shakespeare’s lifetime, the Elizabethan Era, or more commonly known as the Renaissance, life for men and women differed greatly from what people are used to today. For example, during that era only young boys had the privilege of being educated in a school, women had arranged marriages, women were considered the property of the head of their household, whether that was their father or their husband. In addition, women were to believed to “perform their genders” (Silver), meaning that how behaved during that time period was not their true selves, but an act for approval from their husbands and fathers. Women were also greatly disregarded, not having much, if any, say in their own lives. While not all of these issues have been solved, even as of 2017, there has been an large amount of improvement. It is easy to see then, why Shakespeare wrote his female characters the way he did, particularly the ones in King Lear.

Shakespeare’s writing is a product of his zeitgeist, and while he was progressive in some
areas, such as premarital sex in his literature, and the occasional female empowerment, he only went so far in his works.
In King Lear, there are three main female characters; Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, all three the title character’s daughters. First off will be the discussion of Goneril and her
story and role within the play. Goneril is the eldest daughter of King Lear and is undoubtedly one of the main antagonists of the work. As a female character written during the Elizabethan era, one of the most gender role strict time periods, it is understandable the role that Goneril is thrust into is that of a villain. While she does commit criminal acts, that is not what labels her so early into the play; it is that of her non-conformity to her female status that shocked readers during the sixteenth century and cemented her position as a profligate. During the first scenes of the play Goneril has not committed any major wrongdoing, yet right from the beginning she gained that title. Her aggressiveness, her amoral and jealous tendencies, as well as her treacherous behavior are the exact opposite of what a woman should be by Elizabethan standards. As well as her personality faults, she also challenges Lear’s authority and takes control from her husband. By all accounts she is a horrible creature, not following the criterion of what a good woman is. She does go on to commit murder later on in the play, but it is long before this heinous act that she has lost all hope of audience recognition or respect.
Regan, the middle child of King Lear, is said to be almost indistinguishable from her sister in terms of jealousy, manipulation and treachery. While not as sinister as her sister, Regan is definitely seen as just as unfavorable as Goneril. Just like her elder sister, Regan
also is manipulative to her father for the gain of his kingdom. As well as the false flattery they bestowed upon him, Regan also practically discarded all of Lear’s wishes and cast him out as a beggar. In addition, while Regan is similar to her sister in acts of cruelty, they are also similar in acts of infidelity and adultery as both sisters are engaged in an affair with the nobleman Gloucester’s illegitimate son Edmund. It is safe to say that if being disobedient to one’s husband was frowned upon, then infidelity was in a field all its own in terms of unfathomable dishonor. Not only did they disgrace their husbands but it was believed during the Renaissance time period that women who allowed men who were not their husbands to enage in sexual intersourse with them were irreparably damaging their bodies, something that caused countless scandals. The fact that both Sisters, Goneril and Regan, would debase themselves further by sleeping with a bastard simply furthers reader’s interpretation of them as unfavorable women. These two sisters were the “dramatic characters” (Charney) who were used as the distinct contrast to that of their youngest sister, Cordelia.
Cordelia, the youngest of King Lear’s children might be expected, after the introduction of her sisters, to be the meek “perfect woman” (Murphy) as described by Phillip Stubbes; a woman who shows “modesty, courtesy, gentleness, affability and good government… obey(ing) the commandment of the apostle who biddeth women be silent and learn of their husbands at home” (Murphy). While she is not the calamitous women her sisters proved to be, she was not the perfect woman either. While she is nice to her sisters, even with all their hostile actions towards her, as well as being held in high approbation by almost everyone else in the play, she is not by any means flawless. For example, Cordelia refuses to give false flattery to her father, believing that the love she has for him is enough and does not need to be expressed with ridiculous embellishments as her sisters had done. This belief results in her banishment from her father’s land. This is not necessarily a flaw, as Cordelia is standing up for what she believes in and remains true to those beliefs, it does not change the fact that her disobedience to her father still paints her in a negative light to readers. The expectations placed on Cordelia are unfair as there is no way for her to live up to that potential with all the limits placed on her as a woman. Shakespeare does write her as getting married to the king of France, even though she does not have a dowry, though even this is more of a constraint on her ability to thrive on her own as now she must obey her husband in all things, as women were “like chattel” (Elizabethan Daily Life) and were simply property of the men in their lives.
Cordelia was used as an example by Shakespeare in a juxtaposition of what a bad case of feminism was and what an acceptable portrayal was.

Goneril and Regan, empowered women by their own work, were evil, conniving women who both ended up dead by their own faults. Cordelia, while she also ended up dead, was killed through no fault of her own and her death was not a cause of her unnatural disobedience. This was the women’s main roles within King Lear; to display the result of disobedient women as well as provide an acceptable example of reasonable feminism. Though this work was not to get carried away, even then the female protagonist ended up dead in the end.

Within early literature there will always be those whose female characters are static. However, in some cases, there are authors that offer a female character with a refreshing take on a woman’s plight; that instead of simply being a man’s property with no thoughts or wants of their own, women are capable of so much

more.