A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare is one of the world’s most well known plays, yet it doesn’t pass a very simple test: the Bechdel Test. While the Bechdel Test isn’t always accurate in measuring female representation and the work’s success in films and literature, it can help to give the audience a pretty good understanding of how significant the female roles are. This test shows the reader that A Midsummer Night’s Dream doesn’t have many well represented women in it, but neither do many other great works. The Bechdel Test has three seemingly simple requirements. First, at least two women have to have a significant role in the work. Secondly, these two females need to talk to each other at least once about, thirdly, something other than a man. To a reader, these needs are pretty easy to pass, however it can be shocking to find out how few movies and books actually pass the Bechdel Test. …show more content…
Of the four significant female characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, none of them help in passing the Bechdel Test.
The only female characters that have any correspondence with each other are Helena and Hermia, and even then it’s always to fight over a man. And, to help worsen the play’s case, most of Helena and Hermia’s lines, even when they’re not together are about a man. This is demonstrated through several soliloquies, which are when one character speaks their thoughts and emotions with only the audience listening. This allows the audience to have insight into that character's mind and be positive that it’s the character’s real thoughts and feelings. One example of a telling soliloquy is when Hermia awakes from sleeping and her very first words are, “Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best to pluck this crawling serpent from my breast…” (Act II Scene II). Hermia’s first reaction is for a man to come save her which in turn denounces the abilities of women to save and protect themselves, but that’s exactly what the Bechdel Test promotes
against. While the Bechdel Test is not always one hundred percent telling, it does have some merit. One one hand, “Gravity fails and a film where women talk about pedicures for 30 seconds would pass,” (Anders, 2014). Gravity displays a strong and independent female lead meanwhile women talking about pedicures would just continue to undermine women. But, on the other hand, the Bechdel Test is a great way to promote the equality of the sexes. So, while the Bechdel Test doesn’t measure the success of a work completely, the work shouldn’t fail this simple test without a valid reason. Even with it’s good intentions, the Bechdel test may not always be valid but it is necessary for society as a whole to be able to see the undermining of women shown in everyday life. While works, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, fail this test without reasonable grounds, others fail for good reasons. For this reason, it cannot be used to determine a work’s individual success, but just society’s success of showing the gender’s equally as a whole.
The character analysis of Mary Anne Bell in comparison and contrast to Martha and Elroy Berdahl implores the audience to consider the idea that gender is not inherent.
Due to traditional stereotypes of women, literature around the world is heavily male-dominant, with few female characters outside of cliché tropes. Whenever a female character is introduced, however, the assumption is that she will be a strong lead that challenges the patriarchal values. The authors of The Thousand and One Nights and Medea use their female centered stories to prove their contrasting beliefs on the role of women not only in literature, but also in society. A story with a female main character can be seen as empowering, but this is not always the case, as seen when comparing and contrasting Medea and The Thousand and One Nights.
Throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, there are multiple analyses that one can follow in order to reach a conclusion about the overall meaning of the play. These conclusions are reached through analyzing the play’s setting, characterization, and tone. However, when one watches the production A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Michael Hoffman, a completely different approach is taken on these aspects, leading to a vastly different analysis of the work. Though there are many similarities between the original written play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare and the on-screen production of the aforementioned play which was directed by Michael Hoffman, there are differences in setting and
In a society where the focus on equality amongst different races, religions and sexes continues to grow, it is no surprise that literature has begun to follow suit. Publishers have seen a rise in strong, capable female protagonists who overcome a variety of struggles to save themselves or others and both teens and adults alike rush to get their hands on this material. With such popular literary works to choose from, it seems strange that many schools continue to rely on somewhat archaic material that mistreats and degrades so many women. In John Steinbeck 's Of Mice and Men, for example, the only female character the reader interacts with is treated like a lower-class prostitute who is ultimately killed off due to her seductive behavior. Though Steinbeck 's treatment of women comes mainly from classic gender roles, his portrayal of female characters in Of Mice and Men is
Even his lightest plays have serious undertones to them. Each one depicts life as it once was, complete with the rules and expectations which were common at the time. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare reflects society’s views on love and gender, both in his own time and in ancient Athens.
William Shakespeare is well known for being a poet, playwright, and actor. Shakespeare's work appears to be very sexist in gender roles. He uses gender roles in his 'Romeo & Juliet' play. Juliet being the main and most important female role in this play; is supposed to be noble and respectful, but instead she goes against her father’s wishes and acts more educated than she really is. Romeo being the main male role in this play is supposed to be focused and noble, but instead he is passionate in love and isn't very wise with decisions but in comparison to Paris, who is very masculine, focused and noble shows a real renaissance male. This paper will demonstrate how Shakespeare uses gender role reversement ; by having feminism and masculinity, arrangement of marriages, and compare and contrast of different characters to prove the model of genders in Elizabethan England.
in this play, women are used as a symbol of male power, or lack of it.
Similar to other works by Shakespeare, such as The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream embellishes the pressures that arise between genders dealing with complicated family and romantic situations. The plot includes a duke who is going to marry a woman he conquered in battle, the king and queen of the fairies embroiled in a fight so fierce that it unbalances the natural world, and a daughter fighting with her father for her right to marry the man she chooses. The girl’s father selects Demetrius to marry his daughter, but she is in love with another man, Lysander, who loves her in return, and her friend Helena is in love Demetrius, but he wants nothing to do with her. Considering the fact that males were dominant during that era, whereas, men chased women, and women remained submissive, Shakespeare dallies with those traditional roles and there are several possible reasons why. Perhaps he made women a stronger force in his plays because he wanted to give his audience a break fr...
Kemp, Theresa D. Women in the Age of Shakespeare. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2009. Print.
Garner, Shirley Nelson, and Madelon Sprengnether, eds. Shakespearean Tragedy and Gender. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indian U, 1996.
William Shakespeare’s The Tempest provides dialogue that portrays the social expectations and stereotypes imposed upon women in Elizabethan times. Even though the play has only one primary female character, Miranda, the play also includes another women; Sycorax, although she does not play as large a roll. During many scenes, the play illustrates the characteristics that represent the ideal woman within Elizabethan society. These characteristics support the fact that men considered women as a mere object that they had the luxury of owning and were nowhere near equal to them. Feminists can interpret the play as a depiction of the sexist treatment of women and would disagree with many of the characteristics and expectations that make Miranda the ideal woman. From this perspective, The Tempest can be used to objectify the common expectations and treatment of women within the 16th and 17th Centuries and compare and contrast to those of today.
Smith, Rebecca. The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Champaign, IL: U of Illinois P, 1983
Gerlach, Jeanne, Rudolph Almasy, and Rebecca Daniel. “Revisiting Shakespeare and Gender.” Revisiting Shakespeare and Gender. The Women in Literature and Life Assembly of The National Council of Teachers of English, 1996. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
...ergren, Paula S. “The Woman’s Part: Female Sexuality as Power in Shakespeare’s Plays.” The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed. Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene and Carol Thomas Neely. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1980.
On the surface, Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night may seem like to the run of the mill Shakespearean comedy. It has loads of the ingredients you would typically see in a Shakespeare play; love being the be all end all, revenge, and yes, cross-dressing. Aside from dramatics, this comedy embodies the fundaments of the battle of the sexes; the age-old conflict is reminiscent to how gender roles are to this day. Man vs. Woman, or the main ingredient as it is, sets the ball rolling for the tone and the social construct of the comedy. Viola, disguised as Cesario, says, “Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy it is for the proper-false in women 's waxen hearts to set their forms!” (Twelfth Night, II.ii 27-30.) This quote alone expresses not only the ambiguity of gender through identity, but also the way men portray female’s inferiority and deceitfulness. Despite the male protagonists ' view on women 's incapability to love, Viola 's