In theatre, a “breeches” role is one where an actress cross-dresses, appearing on stage in male clothing. Heroines in breeches roles are predominantly limited to playing youths, retaining their femininity within this in-between state (Mann, 228). Malvolio describes Cesario as “Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy” (I.v.149-50). Twelfth Night, through these breeches and androgynous characters, explores how gender is fashioned. In exploring this androgyny, Shakespeare looks back to Ovid’s myths of metamorphosis and of Hermaphroditus, incorporating a set of attitudes regarding love and union between men and women (Slights, 327). Viola’s gender performance is used to demonstrate that sexual and romantic attraction “is not an inherently gendered or heterosexual phenomenon” (Charles, 124).
Cultural meanings gender attached to a sexed body are “theoretically applicable to either sex” (Charles, 122). Judith Butler argues that the “production of sex as the prediscursive ought to be understood as the effect of the apparatus of cultural constructions designated by gender” (qtd. in Charles, 122). Gender is a social construct that varies within each society, related to but not identical to one’s sex (Rackin, 30). Signifiers of gender and meaning are as various and constantly shifting. Some critics argue that if genders roles can be simulated like in these play, “then they have no natural validity and are no more than role-playing or masquerade” (Mann, 228). In this play, social construction of gender and sexual identities are dramatized (Charles, 122). Clearly established in Act 1.2 is Viola’s plan to disguise herself as a man, and all her actions within the play are understood in relation to this disguise. When the audie...
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...ct 2.4 becomes an emotional centre of the play, pushing the relationship between Orsino and Viola/Cesario further than previously seen. In reading the dialogue, one can fully appreciated the diverse passions felt between the characters. Predominate throughout the play is the interplay and ambiguity of gender and sexuality. In cross-gender casting the characters of Viola and Orsino, this theme became the most predominate in our performance. In doing so, we were able to appreciate the difficulties of playing cross-dressed characters, engaging in the Elizabethan practice of a male actor playing a female role. Through the performance feedback, we were able to consider, explore, and question both planned and subconscious choices in portraying gender through costuming and speech that brought deeper meaning to the themes of gender and sexuality and to the text as a whole.
The play Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare is a 1601 comedy that has proven to be the source of experimentation in gender casting in the early twenty-first century due to its portrayal of gender in love and identity. The play centrally revolves around the love triangle between Orsino, Olivia, and Viola. However, Olivia and Orsino both believe Viola is a boy named Cesario. Ironically, only male actors were on the stage in Shakespeare’s time. This means that Olivia, Viola, and other female characters were played by young boys who still had voices at higher pitches than older males.
One of the most celebrated and authoritative women in the 16th century was Elizabeth I. Even though the authority was at woman's hands at that time, a dominant woman was unnatural in the society itself. The presence of such a powerful female figure creates an interesting situation for dramatists and playwrights in terms of depicting women's status at that time. By using the psychological concept ,liminality; I am going to examine the relationship between Viola's speech , society's authority and her public space which is consists of two main parts: her private life as Viola and her public life as Cesario and how this relationship has a great impact upon her character development.
Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare Without Women: Representing Gender and Race on the Renaissance Stage. New York, Routledge. 2000
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice has been attributed to various psychological, mythical, racial, social sources: Othello’s status as racial outsider in Venetian society, his pagan roots in Christian society, hubris and/or hamartia in Othello or in Desdemona. While any of these interpretations no doubt helps to inform a fuller discussion of the play, I would like to focus the question of the cause of this tragedy in another area: the realm of gender. I will argue that the tragedy occurs as a result of the protagonists’ overwhelming adherence to their society’s stereotyped gender roles, and that Iago further encourages and manipulates these gender roles to his own ends. In this essay, I use the word “gender” to describe those physical, biological, behavioral, verbal, textual, mythic, and power dynamic cues that signal to others in the society, specifically the society of this play, that one is perceived as belonging or not belonging to a specific category of masculine or feminine (Bornstein 26-30). I will also use Kate Bornstein’s definition of “gender roles”: the “positions and actions specific to a given gender as defined by a culture” (26).
Though its primary function is usually plot driven--as a source of humor and a means to effect changes in characters through disguise and deception—cross dressing is also a sociological motif involving gendered play. My earlier essay on the use of the motif in Shakespeare's plays pointed out that cross dressing has been discussed as a symptom of "a radical discontinuity in the meaning of the family" (Belsey 178), as cul-tural anxiety over the destabilization of the social hierarchy (Baker, Howard, Garber), as the means for a woman to be assertive without arousing hostility (Claiborne Park), and as homoerotic arousal (Jardine). This variety of interpretations suggests the multivoiced character of the motif, but before approaching the subject of this essay, three clarifica- tions are necessary at the outset.
Gender roles are one of the most controversial topics in the history of humanity. Some people approve of them, while others disagree with them. Gender roles are defined as “the behavior learned by a person as appropriate to their gender, determined by the prevailing cultural norms”. There are times throughout history where gender roles were very unfair. However, some individuals still defied them in both open and discreet ways. One of these individuals was the famous literary figure, William Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare may have defied gender roles in some of his other literary works, the scope of this essay will be limited to his stellar play, Macbeth. In Macbeth, Shakespeare mostly uses three characters to defy gender roles: The Three
In Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, gender identity and alternative sexualities are highlighted through the depiction of different characters and personalities. In the play, Viola disguises herself as a man thereby raising a merry-go-around of relationships that are actually based on a lie rather than actual fact. Viola attracts the attention of Olivia since she thinks that Viola is a man but even more fascinating is the fact that Orsino is attracted to Viola although he thinks that she is a man. In another twist Viola is attracted to Orsino and has fell in love with him although their love cannot exist since Orsino thinks that Viola is a man.
Judith Butler’s concept of gender performativity suggests that there is a distinction between “sex, as a biological facticity, and gender, as the cultural interpretation or signification of that facticity” (Butler, 522). Performing certain actions that society associates with a specific gender marks you as that gender. In this way, gender is socially constructed. Alfar defines the societal expectation of women as the “constant and unquestioning feminine compliance with the desires of the masculine” (114). Considering Macbeth from a modern perspective and taking this distinction into account, it is necessary to determine if the play is concerned with sex or with gender. Before the action of the play even begins, the audience is warned that “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (1.1.11). The first scene of the play casts the world of Macbeth as a land where everything is opposite or disordered. This line at the very start of the play cautions audiences to not take the play at face value because things are not always as they appear to be. Because of this, “all the binaries become complicated, divisions blurred. Thus the binary nature of gender identities, male/female, is eliminated” (Reaves 14). In the world of Macbeth, the typical gender constructions are manipulated and atypical. If the play does not deal with sex, the qualities of Lady Macbeth cannot be applied to all women but rather, representative of society’s construction of gender, “the patriarch, and the limited, restrictive roles of women” (Reaves 11). Within this reading of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s examination and questioning of gender construction allows modern day readers to recognize the enduring relevance of
The play opens with Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, expressing his deep love for the Countess Olivia. Meanwhile, the shipwrecked Viola disguises herself as a man and endeavors to enter the Duke’s service. Although she has rejected his suit, the Duke then employs Viola, who takes the name of Cesario, to woo Olivia for him. As the play continues, Cesario falls in love with the Duke, and Olivia falls in love with Cesario, who is really Viola disguised. Maria, Olivia’s servant woman, desires to seek revenge on Malvolio, Olivia’s steward. “To the delight of Sir Toby, Olivia’s uncle, and his friend Sir Andrew, Maria comes up with a plot to drop love letters supposedly written by Olivia in Malvolio’s path. When she does, they observe him, along with Fabian, another servant, as Malvolio falls for the bait. Believing that Olivia loves him, he makes a fool of himself” (Napierkowski 3).
After Duke Orsino asks Cesario (disguised Viola) to make Olivia love him, although she had stated that she would not marry for seven years due to her sadness from her brother’s death, Cesario tells him “I’ll do my best to woo your lady.” Then Viola tells the audience “(Aside) yet, a barful strife—Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife,” meaning that she has to convince another woman to love the man she loves. The exchange of words in this scene exemplifies dramatic irony since the reader now knows that a love road that connects Duke Orsino, Viola, and Olivia has formed while Orsino is clueless about the situation. Situational irony can also be withdrawn from this conversation because it is shocking that Viola is in love with Orsino. Viola’s sudden love for Orsino illustrates a universal truth about life that sometimes people fall in love too quickly without thinking far ahead.
The Impact of Gender on Shakespeare’s Othello. In the book “Gender Trouble” (1990), feminist theorist Judith Butler explains “gender is not only a social construct, but also a kind of performance such as a show we put on, a costume or disguise we wear” (Butler). In other words, gender is a performance, an act, and costumes, not the main aspect of essential identity. By understanding this theory of gender as an act, performance, we can see how gender has greatly impacted the outcome of the play in William Shakespeare’s Othello.
Viola's male masquerade also calls attention to the more general theme of masking. As Cesario, Viola suggests that things are not always as they seem, that identities are protean, that self-deception rivals self-knowledge and that only Time can untie complicated "knots." Coppelia Kahn points out that the cross-dressing in Twelfth...
In Twelfth Night, the character Viola, who cross-dresses as a man named Cesario, is used to show how true love is capable of breaking gender barriers. Viola is an amiable character who has no severe faults. The audience can clearly detect that Viola's love is the purest because unlike Orsino and Olivia, her character's love is not narcissistic and does not jump from one person to the next. In other words, her actions are motivated by deep and abiding passion rather than whimsical choices. Viola's main problem, however, throughout the play is one of identity. Because of her costume, she must be both herself and Cesario. Thi...
Throughout Twelfth Night, disguise and mistaken identity works as a catalyst for confusion and disorder which consistently contributes towards the dramatic comic genre of the play. Many characters in Twelfth Night assume disguises, beginning with Viola, who disguises herself as a man in order to serve Orsino, the Duke. By dressing his protagonist in male garments, Shakespeare creates ongoing sexual confusion with characters, which include Olivia, Viola and Orsino, who create a ‘love triangle’ between them. Implicitly, there is homoerotic subtext here: Olivia is in love with a woman, despite believing her to be a man, and Orsino often comments on Cesario’s beauty, which implies that he is attracted to Viola even before her male disguise is removed. However, even subsequent to the revealing of Viola’s true identity, Orsino’s declares his love to Viola implying that he enjoys lengthening the pretence of Vio...
Love however, is the source of much confusion and complication in another of Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night. Men and women were seen as very different from each other at the time the play was written, they were therefore also treated in very different ways. Because of this Viola conceals her identity and adopts the role of a man, in order to better her safety whilst being alone on the island, and to get a job at Count Orsino’s court. In the play Shakespeare uses the gender confusion he has created from obscuring characters identities to explore the limits of female power and control within courtship, and their dominance within society. Violas frustration surrounding her inability to express her feelings to the Count because she is a woman is an example of the limiting rules of courtship which were upheld at the time. (Aside) ‘yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.’ Here she is already expressing her anxiety and emotion at being a woman, and having to keep her emotions hidden from those around her. She longs to be able to express her love as a man could, and in her disguise as Cesario she finds an opportunity to vent her feelings for the Count, but concealed as his words and towards Olivia. Viola is unaware of how her words may sound to Olivia because she is aware of their gender boundaries however Olivia isn’t and soon falls for Cesario. Because Olivia is a Lady and head of the household, and especially how she lacks a father figure, she has a lot more freedom in courtship. Duisinberre comments on this saying, ‘...Viola and Beatrice are women set free from their fathers, and their voice is that of the adult world.’ This is seen when Olivia immediately takes the dominant role in her and Cesarios relat...