An Anti-Feminist and Feminist Look into William Shakespeare’s King Lear

Throughout the past centuries, the world has looked at women with certain

stereotypical ideas in mind. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, women were

supposed to be submissive, quiet, and many other things that took away from their natural

rights as human beings. Men were the correct ones in all situations and any woman who

stood in a man’s way was punished. It was not until the twentieth century that women started

to find their voices and started to stand up for what they believed was right. William

Shakespeare was one of the few early writers that saw the world as more than just black and

white. He saw the variety of colors, writing not always from a bland male-chauvinist point

of view, but from the point of view of a man who knew there is more to life than male

dominance. According to Jonathan Dollimore’s “Shakespeare, Cultural Materialism,

Feminism and Marxist Humanism,” “Respectable women are maids, widows, or wives;

otherwise they are punks, imagined to be subverting the patriarchal order even as they are the

victims of its displacements” (478). With Lear as the catalyst, Shakespeare both demolishes

and strengthens many of the anti-feminist and feminist stereotypes of the sixteenth century

using the three female characters in King Lear.

In the first act, Lear asks each of his daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, to

proclaim their love to him so that he can divide up his kingdom three ways. Because of

this request, Lear supports the stereotype that women are supposed to be ever loyal and

compliant. Lear is whole-heartedly expecting to hear nothing but praise from each

daughter, not wanting to believe that they could ever deceive him, because how can they?...

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