Women in the Plays of Shakespeare
By paying close attention to the woman's part in Shakespeare's plays, we can see his works with a new perspective. But we must remember that we are examining a male dramatist of extraordinary range writing in a remote period when women's position was in obvious ways more restricted and less disputed than in our own period. Sandra Gilbert writes in The Madwoman in the Attic that literature is defined as a mirror held up to society and nature, "the mimetic aesthetic that begins with Aristotle and descends through Shakespeare implies that the poet, like a lesser God, has made or engendered an alternative, mirror-universe in which he actually seems to enclose or trap shadows of reality" (Madwoman 5). While some artists do not necessarily duplicate in their art the "realities" of their culture, they may exploit them to create character or intensify conflict, or struggle with, criticize, or transcend them. Shakespeare, it would seem, "encompasses more and preaches less than most authors, hence the centuries-old controversy over his religious affiliation, political views, and sexual preferences" (Lenz 4). His attitude toward women are equally complex and demand as much examination.
As we begin to study the female characters, we must overlook the male superiority that patriarchal misogyny implies in the literature of his era, as evidenced in many studies. In "Shakespeare: on Love and Lust", Charney explains the stance taken by critics such as Janet Adelman in "Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare's Plays, Hamlet to The Tempest", and Kahn's "Man's Estate: Masculine Identity in Shakespeare". He claims that these two authors, as many others do, view Sh...
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... mother, wife, nor England's queen" The Roles of Women in Richard III". The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed. Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Galye Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1980.
Park, Clara Claiborne. "As We Like It: How a Girl Can Be Smart and Still Popular." 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.
Schoenbaum, S. "The Life of Shakespeare." The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Ed Stanley Wells. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. Sandra Gilbert. New York: Norton and Company, 1996.
www.adfl.org/ade/bulletin/N087/0087015.htm
In Salinas Valley around the 1850s, gold was found by a man named James W. Marshall in California. The first people to hear and be familiar with the “Gold Rush” were the people in Oregon, Hawaii, and Latin America who started to flock to the state. Everyone told and the word spread which led around 300,000 people to California from the US. At first, gold was found on the ground and was to be picked up. Later on, gold was discovered from streams and riverbeds.
Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997. 366-398. Neely, Carol Thomas. “Shakespeare’s Women: Historical Facts and Dramatic Representations.”
James Marshall discovered gold in the American River in northern California which caused a great migration to California. Due to this discovery, the United States commodity prices increased and raise in commodity prices urged workers to go on strike in order to protect their standard of living. The U.S. provided 45 percent of the world's gold production between 1851 and 1855. Many people benefited from finding gold because the amount of gold that was found will determine how well they succeeded in becoming rich. The Gold Rush led to the exploration of different territories in California, the encountering of gold, and the exchange of different cultural ideas. The exploration of gold in California during the 1800's affected immigration, the exchange of cultural ideas and shaped the social structure during this period also known as the "Gold Rush."
Warren, Roger. Shakespeare Survey 30. N.p.: n.p., 1977. Pp. 177-78. Rpt. in Shakespeare in the Theatre: An Anthology of Criticism. Stanley Wells, ed. England: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Heilman, Robert B. & Co. The Role We Give Shakespeare." Essays on Shakespeare - "The Shakespearean" Ed. Gerald Chapman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965.
During the Shakespearean era, obeying husbands and fathers was looked at so highly that it matched obeying the King of England; the uppermost pedestal was reserved for the Shakespearean man. Gender roles lead to the development of self-individualism which divided the men from the women by establishing a deep distrust of women into the men along with an authoritative dominance, and in hand locked women into a permanent submissive position. One of the most oppressed groups throughout history has been women, which were socially, economically, educationally and religiously oppressed during the time period of Shakespearean society. Social normality and political views has been throughout time, arguably the most extreme oppression enforcement over social outcaste subgroups. Society also held a strong grip on artists and the creative messages of the work that artist deliver to the world, which can depict a sometimes hidden, or subtle dropping of opinions of the hard hitting issues at hand during the present time period. Shakespeare is deemed as one of the greatest known writer’s in English history, not only because he was tremendously attentive towards the Elizabethan era and the diverse struggles that haunted the streets of England in everyday life’s routine, but because he did more than just take notice, as he acted upon the travesties he observed by weaving the representation of the world he came to know through his artwork, leaving the world with irreplaceable pieces of literature and insightful history of Shakespearean society.
The California Gold Rush in 1849 was the catalyst event for the state that earned them a spot in the U.S. union in 1850. This was not the first gold rush in North America; however, it was one of the most important gold rush events. The story of how the gold was discovered and the stories of the 49ers are well known. Men leaving their families in the East and heading West in hopes of striking it rich are the stories that most of us heard about when we learn about the California Gold Rush. Professors and scholars over the last two decades from various fields of study have taken a deeper look into the Gold Rush phenomena. When California joined the Union in 1850 it helped the U.S. expand westward just as most Americans had intended to do. The event of the Gold Rush can be viewed as important because it led to a national railroad. It also provided the correct circumstances for successful entrepreneurship, capitalism, and the development modern industrialization. The event also had a major influence on agriculture, economics, and politics.
Kemp, Theresa D. Women in the Age of Shakespeare. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2009. Print.
A gold fever was arising. It was the talk of the country in the mid 1800’s. Worth about $1,000 per ounce today, gold meant great wealth in the 1840’s and 50’s. The news of gold findings in California soon spread worldwide. Many people were quick to react hearing that gold had been founded in California. California was a place of chaos during the gold rush of 1849. A plot of land that went for $15 in 1847, was later sold for $40,000 after the discovery of gold(Heinrichs, 23). Cities formed and California’s economy increasingly grew. A railroad was built which connected California to other states farther east in the United States because flocks of people continued migrating with the hopes of wealth. The gold rush drew much needed attention to California making it a crucial event to decisions about California in the future. The gold rush of 1849 resulted in the rapid growth of California ultimately leading to statehood and westward expansion.
Ekici, Sara (2009). Feminist Criticism: Female Characters in Shakespeare's Plays Othello and Hamlet. Munich: GRIN Publishing.
"California Gold Rush (1848–1858)." Harvard University Library Open Collections Program: Immigration to the United States, 1879-1930. N.p., n.d. 17 May 2014. .
San Francisco was a small town of a few hundred people in 1840, but by 1850 it was a huge city whose economy was injected with gold money. This rapid growth and development was brought on by an accidental discovery by James Marshall. “I reached my hand down and picked it up; it made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold. The piece was about half the size and shape of a pea. Then I saw another.” Marshall had been working on a lumber mill for John Sutter, when he made his discovery. Early efforts were made in the beginning to keep the discovery quiet, but they soon failed, and lead way to one of the single largest migration of American’s across the continent.
The first gold rush in Alaska took place in 1896-1899 in an area known as the Klondike. “100,000 set out. 30,000 arrived in the Klondike. Around 4,000 found gold” stated Gary l. Blackwood in his article in ‘Wild West’ magazine. The miners that arrived in the Klondike were searching for a big pay out of gold, and used old fashioned, homemade sluices. The sluices are used by the gold rich material is poured out on top and groves and metal screens catch the gold and heavier black sand. Today the Klondike region is still being mined and is still producing gold for the lucky few that find it.
Throughout the historical literary periods, many writers underrepresented and undervalued the role of women in society, even more, they did not choose to yield the benefits of the numerous uses of the female character concerning the roles which women could accomplish as plot devices and literary tools. William Shakespeare was one playwright who found several uses for female characters in his works. Despite the fact that in Shakespeare's history play, Richard II, he did not use women in order to implement the facts regarding the historical events. Instead, he focused the use of women roles by making it clear that female characters significantly enriched the literary and theatrical facets of his work. Furthermore in Shakespeare’s history play, King Richard II, many critics have debated the role that women play, especially the queen. One of the arguments is that Shakespeare uses the queen’s role as every women’s role to show domestic life and emotion. Jo McMurtry explains the role of all women in his book, Understanding Shakespeare’s England A Companion for the American Reader, he states, “Women were seen, legally and socially, as wives. Marriage was a permanent state” (5). McMurtry argues that every woman’s role in the Elizabethan society is understood to be a legal permanent state that is socially correct as wives and mothers. Other critics believe that the role of the queen was to soften King Richard II’s personality for the nobles and commoners opinion of him. Shakespeare gives the queen only a few speaking scenes with limited lines in Acts two, four, and five through-out the play. Also, she is mentioned only a few times by several other of the characters of the play and is in multiple scenes wit...
Around 1848 gold was discovered in the American River, which ran right through California. By 1849 tens of thousands of people from around the world mad...