Shakespeare’s perceptive point of view about social order and gender role are significantly introduced within King Lear through many characters, as they are indicative to the discrepancy of standardized gender role prevalent in his period of time. In King Lear, the readers can progressively perceive the alterations within the daughters, as they yearn to surpass their limitations that are imposed based on their gender to achieve equality and power. Shakespeare intelligently implements the feebleness of both males and females within his play as a way to indicate humanity’s fragility and frailness. Additionally, he switches the gender roles of the characters at the end, creating a notorious conflict among the relationships of those characters.
These unequal concepts are crucial factors that ultimately lead these characters to alter their standardized gender role, and commit heinous actions that are perceived to be against their morality. Shakespeare implements the notion of gender role’s discrepancy, prevalent in his period of time, through his characters to perpetuate and empower their social status and power. Goneril’s inner masculine supremacy slowly emerges as she yearns to overcome her standardized gender role and achieve power by her malevolent ambition and words. Shakespeare primarily introduces Goneril to be an ordinary and negligent character, as she enacts her passive nature towards King Lear and others. As the story progresses, the readers can perceive a drastic alteration within Goneril’s dialogues, as she becomes more vile, manipulative, and blunt towards others. Those traits initiate the uprising power of virile influence upon the character. In the article, King Lear’s “Immoral” Daughters and The Politics of Kingship by Cristina Alfar, the author states “Goneril ridicules her husband’s manhood, describing him as feminine, weak, and
Perhaps she is elevating her own authority to judge others insensitively, which is indicative of the growing masculine supremacy within her. The dominance of a female figure towards a male figure renders a significant discrepancy between male’s and female’s role. In order to fully express Goneril’s masculine power, Shakespeare contrives the contradiction of submissive and oppressive power between her and Albany. The ironic concept of Goneril’s blunt dialogue towards Albany renders a sense of freedom of speech without limitation based on her own willpower. In King Lear’s Act IV, scene 2, Goneril notoriously insults Albany’s masculinity and pride by stating, “Milk-livered man! / That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; / Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning / Thine honor from thy suffering;” (Shakespeare 4.2.50-53). In this instance, Goneril mercilessly judges Albany for his feebleness as a man, and the lack of intelligent thought for rational aspects as she says “That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;” In addition, Goneril declares Albany’s
Cordelia uses her self-entitlement to create a newfound identity for herself that is stronger and more prominent. The text creator develops her character through a very strong leader who regardless of her gender is able to use her sense of entitlement to empower herself. On the other hand, closely following this concept set out by Shakespeare, he also expands on the other side of this curtain through King Lear. Lear’s fatal flaw is indeed is self-entitlement and this upper status of himself he has built up. It not only leads to the ultimate downfall of himself, but further also causes the destruction of the closely held relationships in his life – causing them to be lost or for the element of complete moral respect to diminish; degrading the value of entitlement. all in all, Shakespeare expands on this key element of self-entitlement and delivers the idea to the reader that when managed it can be a tool that empowers an individual, or when gone out of one’s control can be the singular reason to the ultimate downfall of an
This mirrors the reaction of Lear when he finds Cordelia dead so could be used by Shakespeare to show the similarities between Lear and Goneril who both crave power and love, but have ultimately been left with nothing. Her character is one that most people would not symphasise with; James W. Bell refers to her as a “devious little conspirator,” but there are many layers to her character that Shakespeare has added to show how no person is completely “good” or “evil.”
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
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.
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.
In King Lear, Shakespeare portrays a society whose emphasis on social class results in a strict social hierarchy fueled by the unceasing desire to improve one’s social status. It is this desire for improved social status that led to the unintentional deterioration of the social hierarchy in King Lear. This desire becomes so great that Edmund, Goneril, Reagan and Cornwall were willing to act contrary to the authority of the social hierarchy for the betterment of their own position within it. As the plot unfolds, the actions of the aforementioned characters get progressively more desperate and destructive as they realize their lack of success in attaining their personal goals. The goals vary, however the selfish motivation does not. With Edmund, Goneril, Reagan and Cornwall as examples, Shakespeare portrays the social hierarchy as a self-defeating system because it fosters desires in its members that motivate them to act against the authority of the hierarchy to benefit themselves. A consideration of each characters actions in chronological order and the reasons behind such actions reveals a common theme among the goals for which morality is abandoned.
Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare dramatically shows what can happen when our common gender roles are broken. He shows the power that people can have over others when they aren’t acting the way they’re expected to.
William Shakespeare displays how oppression can stem from formerly unjust relationships in the play King Lear. While the character of King Lear descends into madness, his three daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, all suffer from the reign of their father as he begs for their love. With this reign, the daughters turn their oppressing father into the oppressed. Through the use of juxtaposition in how Lear's three daughters oppresses him, Shakespeare conveys how switched oppression can stem from the previously oppressed relationship, a concept that is prevalent in today's society with the increase of sexual assault victims speaking out and exposing their perpetrator.
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...
How this critique supports the idea of challenging gender norms and having a resolution that is male-dominated is that it argues that women and men can’t deviate out of customary tradition. In another critique, it is stated that masculine women can feminize men, and that results in the depletion of personal power and social authority, which challenges the gender norms presented in that time period (Ryan 1073). Tragic events occur from people who “step out of their place,” and that’s why we get the play as we know it; King Lear dies because he stepped out of customary roles and gave land to women, and also Cordelia who held power and went against her fathers desires, but she ultimately dies for trying to be her own person. I would argue that the deviation of social structure (challenging gender norms) results in negative consequences (such as death) because male dominance always has to come out on top because women in power would have a massive effect on the social structure for that time
The portrayal of gender roles in William Shakespeare’s play Othello, demonstrates the inferior treatment of women and the certain stereotypes of men placed on them by society. Both the male and female characters in the play have these certain gender expectations placed on them. In a society dominated by men, it is understood that the women are to be seen rather than heard. The women are referred to and treated much like property. If indeed they do speak up, they are quickly silenced. One woman’s attempt to be the perfect wife is what ultimately led to her demise. The expectations of men are equally stereotypical. Men are to be leaders and to be in control and dominant especially over the women. The male characters compete for position and use the female characters in the play as leverage to manipulate each other. Shakespeare provides insight in understanding the outcomes of the men and women who are faced with the pressures of trying to live up to society’s expectations, not only in the workplace, but also in the home. The pressure creates jealousy issues amongst the men and they become blind to the voice of reason and are overtaken by jealous rage, leads to the death of many of the characters.
Shakespeare and his works questioned and presented the Elizabethan society, the stage used as a tool to represent larger ideas. Gender in the play is largely linked with morality, sin, redemption, fall and passionate pleasure. In King Lear there is an abuse of power, especially in regards to woman. The devouring feminine, and a fall from grace by the patriarchy ensued through incestuous behaviour, adultery and unnatural relationships leads to a fluidity in gender and generational roles. The violation of the natural order awakens divine retribution, leading to the collapse of the kingdom and chastisement eventually resulting in the rebirth of the patriarchy. In King Lear gender issues resolve from a power struggle, a deviation by the paternal
In the end, we can conclude that Shakespeare used a very conservative world view in his play, “Othello”. Using the characters of Othello, Desdemona, and Iago, Shakespeare reinforced the stereotypes of his time. In conclusion, gender expectations have greatly impacted the outcome of Shakespeare’s play, “Othello”, because the script of the play has reinforced the stereotypes such as girls who resist their fathers die, women who marry different race, class, and cultures die, and women who decide their own destiny die at the end. Through “Othello”, Shakespeare portrays women in a patriarchal system, and the result of the play is the consequences of gender disruptions. Therefore, there is no doubt that the gender expectations placed on both male and female characters have greatly impacted the outcome of Shakespeare’s play “Othello”.
In regard to her role in the Elizabethan age, Goneril not only stood for evil, but also rebellion. She has rebelled against the accepted role for women by rebelling against both her father and husband. This reflects much of the theme of the play in that rebellion against accepted social order under mines that order, which leads to downfall and chaos. Ag...
While at war with each other for Edmund 's love, jealousy and resentment surface between the two. Goneril plots to murder her own husband and kill her own sister, an act purely driven by greed and lust to win Edmund 's love and have complete control of the kingdom (Lind). Being so power-hungry, Goneril has no conscience, not even for her own flesh and blood. She is willing to fight and win at all cost while basing her theory of life on the "survival of the fittest" concept. Goneril and Regan show superior strength as strong women by being deceitful and cruel towards their father, husbands and finally each other, but their behavior caused everything to happen with dirty intentions, leading to their downfall of power and death (Teach). Shakespeare appears to paints all empowering women as conniving, selfish and evil. Well, "if the shoe fits," Goneril and Regan wear it