Gender Roles in Shakespeare
Gender Roles in Shakespeare It is a peculiar feature of Shakespeare's plays that they both participate in and
reflect the ideas of gender roles in Western society. To the extent that they reflect existing
notions about the 'proper' roles of men and women, they can be said to be a product of
their society. However, since they have been studied, performed, and taught for five
hundred years, they may be seen as formative of contemporary notions about the
relationships between males, females, and power.
Derrida was right in asserting that "there is no 'outside' to the text." His claim is that every text is
affected by every other text and every other speech act. As an instance, most of Shakespeare's
plays have traceable sources for their central plots. Representations of gender in Renaissance
drama are tied to their original presentation: "bearing the traces of their history in a theatrical
enterprise which completely excluded women, (these texts) construct gender from a
relentlessly androcentric perspective" (Helms 196). It is the ways in which these texts
reflect or distort the gender expectations of society, either Elizabethan or contemporary,
that is so important.
Comedy that centers on the relationship between conventional couples rather than
on resolution of the situation that keeps them apart is really quite difficult to find in
Shakespeare. Ferdinand and Miranda are so uninteresting as a couple that their chief
function seems to be as an excuse for Prospero to exhibit his art. The lovers in Midsummer Night's
Dream are certainly at their most entertaining when they're in love with the wrong person. It is the
exaggerated character--Falstaff, Petruchio, Paulina, or Cleopatra--or those who step outside the borders of their assigned gender roles--Rosalind, Portia, Viola--who generate
the greatest theatrical and critical interest.
reflect the ideas of gender roles in Western society. To the extent that they reflect existing
notions about the 'proper' roles of men and women, they can be said to be a product of
their society. However, since they have been studied, performed, and taught for five
hundred years, they may be seen as formative of contemporary notions about the
relationships between males, females, and power.
Derrida was right in asserting that "there is no 'outside' to the text." His claim is that every text is
affected by every other text and every other speech act. As an instance, most of Shakespeare's
plays have traceable sources for their central plots. Representations of gender in Renaissance
drama are tied to their original presentation: "bearing the traces of their history in a theatrical
enterprise which completely excluded women, (these texts) construct gender from a
relentlessly androcentric perspective" (Helms 196). It is the ways in which these texts
reflect or distort the gender expectations of society, either Elizabethan or contemporary,
that is so important.
Comedy that centers on the relationship between conventional couples rather than
on resolution of the situation that keeps them apart is really quite difficult to find in
Shakespeare. Ferdinand and Miranda are so uninteresting as a couple that their chief
function seems to be as an excuse for Prospero to exhibit his art. The lovers in Midsummer Night's
Dream are certainly at their most entertaining when they're in love with the wrong person. It is the
exaggerated character--Falstaff, Petruchio, Paulina, or Cleopatra--or those who step outside the borders of their assigned gender roles--Rosalind, Portia, Viola--who generate
the greatest theatrical and critical interest.