Much Ado About Nothing Feminist Analysis
The Roles of Women
The roles of women in the Elizabethan time were very confined. Women could be tutored, but they were not allowed to attend universities. Women could not vote, they could not be heirs to their fathers title, and a man had the legal right to chastise his wife as he was seen as the head of the marriage. Gender roles are standards in which men and women are expected to play according to their sex. Women in many of Shakespeare's plays established their own identity in the story through a sequence of interactions with various characters in the play. The female characters in Shakespeare plays can be seen as two-dimensional and unrealistic portrayals of subservient women, or prominent for the time and culture that they lived in. In Shakespeare's The Taming Of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing both of these female characteristics are displayed. The protagonist of The Taming of The Shrew Katherine represents the women who did not give into gender roles by being rude, critical, scornful, and insulting. Katherine is an intelligent woman who is not afraid to assert her views on any given situation. The character Hero Of Much Ado About Nothing sweet and graceful characteristics gives right into the female gender roles. …show more content…
After a fight with Bianca, Katherine wanted things her way, she wanted her father to let her be. She knows and excepts the fact that her father treasures Bianca and that men do too. She knows that she lives in the shadows of her beautiful sister who pretends to be gentle, kind, helpless, and selfless. Katherine has to fight for her fathers love, she wants her father to see that Bianca is in fact a hypocrite and a manipulator. Bianca unlike Katherine gives into the role of what a women should be like, but Katherine is far to intelligent to allow herself to give into society's views of
The roles of women in the Elizabethan time were very confined. Women could be tutored, but they were not allowed to attend universities. Women could not vote, they could not be heirs to their fathers title, and a man had the legal right to chastise his wife as he was seen as the head of the marriage. Gender roles are standards in which men and women are expected to play according to their sex. Women in many of Shakespeare's plays established their own identity in the story through a sequence of interactions with various characters in the play. The female characters in Shakespeare plays can be seen as two-dimensional and unrealistic portrayals of subservient women, or prominent for the time and culture that they lived in. In Shakespeare's The Taming Of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing both of these female characteristics are displayed. The protagonist of The Taming of The Shrew Katherine represents the women who did not give into gender roles by being rude, critical, scornful, and insulting. Katherine is an intelligent woman who is not afraid to assert her views on any given situation. The character Hero Of Much Ado About Nothing sweet and graceful characteristics gives right into the female gender roles. …show more content…
After a fight with Bianca, Katherine wanted things her way, she wanted her father to let her be. She knows and excepts the fact that her father treasures Bianca and that men do too. She knows that she lives in the shadows of her beautiful sister who pretends to be gentle, kind, helpless, and selfless. Katherine has to fight for her fathers love, she wants her father to see that Bianca is in fact a hypocrite and a manipulator. Bianca unlike Katherine gives into the role of what a women should be like, but Katherine is far to intelligent to allow herself to give into society's views of