Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The Roles of Women in Shakespearean Dramas
The Roles of Women in Shakespearean Dramas
The Roles of Women in Shakespearean Dramas
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The Roles of Women in Shakespearean Dramas
As You Like It Literary Analysis As You Like It is a typical Elizabethan comedy. There are puns galore, and plenty of dramatic irony to drive the plot forward. The title is even a reference to how the play ends – with a giant wedding uniting three couples the way an audience would like it. While on the surface Shakespeare’s As You Like It may seem like a straightforward play, there are a few different examples of power dynamics strung throughout: the most obvious being the power struggle between Dukes Ferdinand and Senior. More interestingly, the play dives into social and cultural norms at the time to display the power dynamic. This is displayed in the familial ties between Orlando and Oliver, as well as with Rosalind and Celia. It is also …show more content…
In the opening scene, Oliver and Orlando have a physical confrontation and Shakespeare establishes that their hate for each other is unjustified. However, a couple of scenes later, Celia sacrifices her current life with Duke Ferdinand in order to follow Rosalind and live with her in the forest. Shakespeare represents masculinity as being competitive and, in Oliver’s case, being better than his brother. Additionally, it includes sudden reconciliation, like Orlando and Oliver in the play. Orlando saves his brother from a lioness even though, “Twice did he turn his back and purposed so; / But kindness, nobler ever than revenger, / And nature, stronger than his just occasion,” (4.3.128-30). By contrast, Shakespeare defines femininity as being self-sacrificing and loving. However, it does not include the dimensions that the masculinity includes. This overall contributes to the Elizabethan ideal that masculinity, and males in general, are of more value than femininity and women. Women are to remain passive and to stick together, while men are encouraged to succeed in life and work to get what they
William Shakespeare, an illustrious and eminent playwright from the Elizabethan Age (16th Century) and part owner of the Globe theatre wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which he portrays the theme of love in many different ways. These include the paternal love seen in the troubled times for Egeus and his rebellious daughter Hermia, true Love displayed with the valiant acts of Lysander and Hermia and the destructive love present in the agonizing acts of Titania towards her desperate lover Oberon. Through the highs and lows of love, the first love we clasp is the paternal love from our family.
According to Elizabethan society, the center of Olivia’s dilemma with her marriage was ensuring her wealth, not marrying a man she loved (Joseph 170). Social class increases division among individuals in society. This play “ is not the story of a Juliet's or an Orlando's love .., but of the very realistic struggles and intrigues over the betrothal of a rich Countess, whose selection of a mate determines the future” (170). Readers looking past these boundaries created by class and gender, can find striking similarities in emotions characters have for each other. The personal struggles the characters face in this play demonstrate the obstacles that individuals faced because of their gender or place in the social hierarchy.
Throughout Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, there is an overlaying presence of the typical roles that men and women were supposed to play. During Elizabethan times there was a major difference between the way men and women were supposed to act. Men typically were supposed to be masculine and powerful, and defend the honor. Women, on the other hand, were supposed to be subservient to their men in their lives and do as ever they wished. In Romeo and Juliet the typical gender roles that men and women were supposed to play had an influence on the fate of their lives.
Centuries ago in Elizabethan England there were many traditions about marriage and the treatment of women. One strong tradition of these times was the practice of marriage between races. Interracial marriages were considered extremely taboo. (High Beam). In this era marriages were arranged by the parents with strong help from the local church. The individuals had little choice as to who they would marry. (Elizabethan England Life). Yet another example of these traditions was the respectable treatment of women. While the husband was in charge of his wife, as was the father, the husband were expected to treat the women right (Elizbethi). In spurning all of these traditions, Shakespeare demonstrates a view of marriage far different from that of Elizabethan England, in doing this he is trying to plant new ideas in the people who read or view the play.
The Elizabethan era gender roles were much different than they are today. Women were regarded as the weaker sex, and men were always dominant. These “rules” are shown prominently throughout Romeo and Juliet, and paved way for obstacles they went through in their relationship. The gender conventions for women and men were prodigiously stereotypical and unreasonable, as they made men out to be the superior gender. Women should not have been perceived as inferior to men, and these unwritten rules for masculinity and femininity were shown throughout the play. Romeo acted very feminine which contradicted his gender conventions while Juliet did not abide by rules and disobeyed her parents. Romeo and Juliet had many ways in which they followed and
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.
First and foremost, the married couples in As You Like It all have similar social statuses in the society. Shepherd Silvius married shepherdess Phebe, nobleman Orlando married mistress Rosalind, and Touchstone the clown married goatherd Audery. Not only did all the couples share the same social status, but their ideology and actions in the play conformed to the social convention as well. Right after Rosalind met Orlando, Celia asks Rosalind about why she had been silent for so long. Rosalind responded Celia with “Some of it is for my child’s father” (1634: 09-10). Then Celia asks why Rosalind suddenly fell in love with Orlando, to which Rosalind replies “The Duke my father loved his father dearly” (1634: 24). It is clear that Rosalind’s affection towards Orlando stems from his father’s affection to Orlando’s father. It was a convention for parents to arrange their children’s marriages, especially for aristocracy. Therefore, Rosalind knew that she was to marry Orlando and that became the rationale for her further affection towards Orlando. Another example of a character in the play conforming to social convention is Phebe. As a native of the forest of Arden, Phebe was straightforward and somewhat arrogant. She was very clear about her feelings to Ganymede and Silvius. However, in the ending scene, when she realizes that the man of her dream was actually a noble woman, and that she was set up into the marriage with Silvius, Phebe conforms to the arrangement and marries Silvius. With a comedy one might expect Shakespeare to make happen something unconventional. However, the marriage part seems to be very conventional as everything was socially expected. But the title of the play somehow conveys an ironic
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.
Love is the central theme in the play ‘As You Like It’ by William Shakespeare, the author expressed many types of love in the play. Some of them are, brotherly love, lust for love, loyal, friendship love, unrequited love, but of course, romantic love is the focus of this play.
The essentially healthy emotional intelligence of Rosalind and Orlando and their suitability for each other emerge from their separate encounters with Jaques (in some editions Jacques), the melancholy ex-courtier who is part of Duke Senior's troupe in the forest. Both Rosalind and Orlando take an instant dislike to Jaques (which is mutual). And in that dislike we are invited to see something vitally right about the two of them.
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, William. As You Like It. Comp. Folger Shakespeare Library. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
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.
Primogeniture in Elizabethan England is a rule in which the first born son receives all property, land, and wealth upon his father’s death. It is known as the “preference in inheritance given by law[…] to the eldest son[…] to keep the estate of the deceased[…] whole and intact” (Britannica 1). Although it is seen as a law, the use of primogeniture also causes familial issues in As You Like It. In this comedy, written by William Shakespeare, Oliver, the older brother of Orlando, despises his younger brother for everyone loves and appreciates him, although it is Oliver that has inherited all of the land from his father. He plans on murdering Orlando, so he runs away to the Forest of Arden, where Rosalind and Celia, disguised as Ganymede and Aliena, have been banished along with Duke Senior.
In Shakespeare's As You Like It loyalty is dominant theme. Each character possesses either a loyalty or disloyalty towards another. These disloyalties and loyalties are most apparent in the relationships of Celia and Rosalind, Celia and Duke Fredrick, Orlando and Rosalind, Adam and Orlando, and Oliver and Orlando. In these relationships, a conflict of loyalties causes characters to change homes, jobs, identities and families.