Feminism in the Works of Shakespeare

Exploring the Complexity of Women's Roles in Shakespearean Works

Abstract

Shakespeare‘s relation to the patriarchal order is further complicated by the very different roles that women play in different genres, a topic that has repeatedly engaged the attention of the feminist critics of Shakespeare. In comedies women are most often nurturing and powerful as their values educate men mutuality between the sexes may be achieved. In tragedy, the roles of women are at once more varied, more constricted, and more precarious. While in comedy the heroines achieve their end gracefully by playing a part, in tragedy they are condemned for acting, accused of being deceitful, even when they are not. Good women are often powerless, and powerful women are always threatening and often destructive. In the tragedies such women are either destroyed or absent from the new order consolidated at the end.