Реферат: Portrayal Of Women In William Shakespeare S

I am ashamed that women are so simple,

To offer war where they should kneel for peace,

Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,

When they are bound to serve, love and obey.

(http://tech-two.mit.edu/Shakespeare/works.html)

Many people interpret this speech in many different ways. Germaine Greer reads it as a defense of Christian monogamy that rests upon the role of a husband as protector and friend, and it is valid because Kate has a man who is capable of both (206). Alternative readings are possible though, it can be read as Kate s acceptance to Petruchio, her showing her superiority to the other women, or being delivered with a wink to the audience (Waller 40). The bottom line is Kate s speech should not be taken at face value. Kate s submission gives her power over Petruchio. The Puritans interpreted a wife s submission as a mode of behavior which could coexist with liberty (Dusinberre 108). The power is indeed in Kate s hands and her final speech proves that indirectly, such as the way she suggest in line six that if the husband s will is not honest , then obedience is not required (http://daphne.palomer.edu/Shakespeare/default.html). So while there is no doubt that Kate is subjected to power throughout the play, it is also true that she wields an irreducible force of her own (http://daphne.palomer.edu/Shakespeare/default .html). What the end comes down to is that Petruchio could only play the part of lord if Kate agreed to the game (Dusinberre 110).

The feminism of Shakespeare s time is still largely unrecognized. The struggle for women s rights is thought of as primarily a nineteenth century phenomenon (Dusinberre 1). A boy s development into manhood through testing experience is one of the oldest themes in literature, while Girl s had to wait out a twenty-five-hundred-year literary history before anyone made fiction of their growth (Lenz 100). As Germaine Greer notes, women s writing was so often edited by men that finding a pure women s text from the early modern period is next to impossible (42).

Although critics believe that the portrayal of women in Shakespeare s plays are discriminating, as classics go, Shakespeare is not bad reading for a girl (Lenz 101). While, it is true that Shakespeare never allowed a women a play of her own, Shakespeare liked women and respected them; not everybody does (Lenz 101). Shakespeare s women are to be praised, for example the dignity of Portia, the energy of Beatrice, the radiant high spirits of Rosalind, and the sweetness of Viola (Lenz 102). Juliet, Cordelia, Rosalind, Beatrice, Cleopatra, Hermione, Emilia, Paulina Shakespeare s girls and mature women are individualized, realized, and fully engaged as human beings (Lenz 103). A young female reader is given some possibility and inspiration while reading Shakespeare s plays such as As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, and Much Ado About Nothing. Who would not, if she could, be beautiful, energetic, active, verbally brilliant and still sought after by desirable men, like these Shakespeare heroines (Lenz 102)? And while submissive mildness is not lacking in Shakespeare, such as Much Ado About Nothing s Hero, these characters are never central to the action (Lenz 108).

Shakespeare could create women who were spunky enough to have fun with, and still find ways to mediate their assertiveness (Lenz 103). Shakespeare and his contemporaries could rely on their audience s alertness to controversy about women (Dusinberre 19). So, although William Shakespeare reflects and at times supports the stereotypes of women and their various roles and responsibilities in society, he is also a writer who questions, challenges, and modifies this representation.

Works Cited

Dusinberre, Juliet. Shakespeare and the Nature of Women. New York: St.Martin s Press,

1996.

Gray, Terry A. Taming of The Shrew Critique. 1995. Mr. William Shakespeare

and The Internet. Online. Internet. 22 March 2000. http://daphne.palomer.edu/Sha kespeare/default.html

Greer, Germaine. The Female Eunuch. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971.

Hylton, Jeremy. Text of All Shakespeare s Plays. 1999. The Complete Works of

William Shakespeare. Online. Internet. April 2000. http//tech.two.mit.edu/Shak

espeare /works.html

Lenz, Carolyn, Ruth Swift, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely. Woman s Part:

Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983.

Rowse, A.L. What Shakespeare Read and Thought. New York: Coward, McCann and

Geoghegan, 1981.

Waller, Gary. Shakespeare s Comedies. New York: Longman, 1991.

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