The Portrayal Of Women In Sixteenth Century Literature

The literature of a particular era is greatly influenced by the contemporary social, political, and cultural issues present during the time. Sixteenth century lifestyle and way of living was completely different from the way we live our lives in the 21st century. One of the very apparent social issue brought to light in the Sixteenth century was the traditional role of women during this time. Many contemporary sixteenth century writers portrayed women in their ideal form in the literature they produced, which caused great problems for women during this time. The portrayal of the “ideal” woman was based on the established protocols of the ideal way women were expeted to behave according to sixteenth century societies standards. In literature,
if a female character did not fit in with these protocols, she was given a dark shade or anti-feminist role. Shakespeare in his tragedies and comedies portrays a common typical character of his ideal heroines, and Spenser portrays female characters in both lights in his work the Faerie Queen as well. To highlight the feminine idealism, both authors incorporate evil female characters into their writings to show the opposite of an ideal woman during the time.
The status of women during the sixteenth century was extremely limited. Females had remarkably limited scope in which they could live their lives and prove their abilities as human beings. Women during this time had a rather difficult time breaking away from doing anything besides managing their households because crossing the social peripheries decided for them was nearly impossible. Women were expected by society to solely be experts in household work, to be good mothers, and respected, obedient wives. Along with these established female roles, women during this time were assigned certain fundamental virtures that all females were required to possess. The main customary virtues seen as desirable in women were: innocence, morality and chastity. In order for a transformation of society to take place, it was necessary for some women to break the existing, oppressive rules set for women at this time. In the contemporary sixteenth century, any rebellious woman who attempted to break the chains of her social bondage was penalized through exiliation from the society or the “breakage of her spirit.” Because a woman was female, it was unquestionably expected of her to be loyal, faithful, and unquestionably obedient to her father and her husband. Women were subservient to men and were forced to completely depend upon their husbands or any male relative to survive financially and socially during this time. Expressing views, sharing thoughts, and education for women were not accepted by the social norms in the sixteenth century. Sixteenth century women had no rights to speak out against the patriarchal rules, or really speak of anything original for that matter.
A woman who possesd a rebellious nature, expressed her opinions, had outspoken views, or controversial actions (especially those that hurt male ego) was completely unacceptable to the patriarchial society during this period in time, and if a woman acted out with any of the following, she would be excommunicated or punished heavily. A particularly well-known example of the opposite of an “ideal woman” is Anne Askew. Askwe’s story is a fine example of the unfortunate situation of contemporary outspoken and rebellious women. Being well-educated and outspoken, Askew was persecutred for heresy in 1545 and imprisoned for her rebellious approach to society as a female (Hickerson, 2007). Apart from having a very inferior status for women, the contradictory part of the sixteenth century was that Queen Elizabeth I had ascended the throne of England in 1558. Unlike the typical ladies of the age, Queen Elizabeth was well educated, well versed in languages, and taken very seriously for a woman and as a monarch. She was an expert in mathematics, politics and history, and she successfully challenged every single stereotype women faced during this time. In an essay titled, “A Room of One’s Own,” by Virgina Woolf, she creates a nonfictional character named Judith Shakespeare, which is Shakespeare’s imaginary sister. Although Woolf was an author during the beginning of the 20th century, she recognizes that if Shakespeare had a sister with the same talents and intellectual gifts as he, she never would have been recognized as the literary genius he is simply because of her gender. Though this is a comic imagination, it is the sad truth of the sixteenth century’s oppression of women. Although a woman might possessed the abilities to create works such as the ones produced by Shakespeare, she never would have been taken seriously during this unjust time. In Woolf’s essay, she writes, “It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare” (Woolf). With these lines, Woolf is expressing how she is looks back and sees that women were severely oppressed in the sixteenth century. Being active members of this patriarchial society, both Shakespeare and Spenser use the typical protocols of the contemporary society in their literary work to show their feminism or anti-feminism. Because these protocols are not applicable in the modern world, hasty conculsions cannot easily be made that Shakespeare and Spenser were gender biased in their representation of the female characters present in their works. The historical facts of the time are important factors to consider while analysing the female characters in either Shakespeare or Spenser’s work.
Spenser's Faerie Queene and Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew for example, portray women characters from male perspectives. One character, Duessa, depicted by Spenser in The Faerie Queen as well as Katherine in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew are based on a psychological concept called the Jungian concept. The male psyche, according to Jung, projects two very distinct, opposing views of woman. Either they are beneficent or demonic, priestess or witch, and there is no in between. According to the male projection, women are either linked with forces of darkness or of those from the divine world(Klaif,). The feminist and anti-feminist characters in The Faerie Queen, are distinguished by Spenser through their names, appearances, and actions. Spenser has portrayed a typical, “ideal” Elizabethan lady, in Una, who is shown as pure, modest and chaste. While introducing Una, Spenser uses the following colour imagery.
A Lovely Ladie rode him faire beside,
Upon a lowly Asse more white then snow,
Yet she much whiter, but the same did hide
Under a vele, that whimpled was full low,
And over all a blacke stole she did throw, (Book 1,Canto 1 , lines 28-32)
To describe her innocence, Spenser uses the colour of her complexion as white, and like the white colour she was pure and chaste and innocent. Una is shown in veil and a black stole to hide her beauty from the world. This signifies that she is virtuous woman, who does not want to openly exhibit her beauty and thus provoke the men she encounters. The contradictory description of Duessa on the other hand is very negative and dark, because Duessa is not meek like the picturesque Una. Spenser portrays Duessa as a deceitful, conniving witch-woman, who only seeks to steer men in the direction of sin. Through the characters of Una and Duessa, Spenser wants to convey the opposing typical female stereotypes of the sixteenth century. If a woman was not the “ideal” woman society had invented, she was dark and evil, and should be changed. Not unlike society during this time, Spenser in The Faerie Queene has portrayed females as either Una or Duessa, virgin or whore, or a positive and negative idea of how a woman should behave. . The major attribute of the poem The Faerie Queen from feminine perspectives is the depiction of good and evil female characters. Throughout the poem. the evil female characters are concerned with the evil deeds of diverting male characters from their noble missions, and keep them away from doing good deeds. The dark female characters are strictly involved in bad deeds, and are solely committed to perverting or spoiling the virtues of the good, male characters. Furthermore, they are seen having very negative vices such as power, pride, arrogance and cruelty, all virtues the “ideal” woman should not have. Spenser has a one-dimensional view in portraying his female characters and classifies them as either too good or too evil, virtuous or vicious. He overlooks the complexities in human psyche, especially in his non-male characters. Spenser has written The Faerie Queene under the influence of social and moral ethics of contemporary society “whose images of woman and love, and whose institutions affecting women and love, were the products of the male imagination” (Berger, 91). In this time, women were seen as either ideal, or not ideal, and their virtues were evaluated by the males.
Virtuous women in the sixteenth century were respected for their virginity above all else. For being virtuous and therefore ideal, a woman's foremost task during this time was to cherish her virginity. Once a woman lost this most prized possession, she was no longer viewed as virtuous. Unfortunately, during this time that held chastity as such a high regard, the chastity and purity of mind of a woman had no place and was seen as . A woman’s chastity was determined solely by the promisquity she allowed, or withheld. As seen in The Faerie Queene, the characteres of Malecasta and Hellenore are initially shown as normal human beings, and in the beginning the state of their chastity is unclear. In the end, these characters are portrayed as vicious women because of loss of their virginities. A woman during this time was respected solely for her beauty, chastity, and powerlessness, not her mind. Loyalty towards her husband and lover was another majorly glorified trait of the “ideal” Elizabethan women. In The Faerie Queen, Duessa, the picture of the unideal woman, deceives two male characters, Fradubio and the Redcross Knight. Duessa is shown as a dark, malevolent character, who solely focuses on playing tricks on men. She is seductress, wanting nothing more than to steer kind, noble men astray, like sixteenth century society believed nonideal women wanted. Duessa is labelled as a deceitful woman because she is not undoubtedly faithful and loyal to the male figure. Further she was powerful; and this power resided in her beauty. In the same way Shakespeare portrays Katherine’s character in The Taming of the Shrew, Duessa is seen as evil because she does not comply completely to her male companions. Early in the play, Katherine is shown as an undesireable, intolerable female, solely because she is trying to raise her voice against the patriarch society.
Katherine, the protagonist of The Taming of the Shrew, is an oppressed, spirited woman . Take for example the title of the play. Because of her anti-feminist acts and headstrong nature, the main character, Katherine, is shown as a “shrew.” The word “shrew,” is defined by Webster’s dictionary as, “a bad-tempered or aggressively assertive woman” (), and because Katherine does not suffer the oppression she faces as a female in silence, she is deemed a “shrew” and Shakespeare sees it necessary to “tame her.” The word 'taming,' in the title of the play, is a disturbing and humiliating word in the context of feminism. It indicates that Shakespeare is comparing rebellious woman to animals, and that men have almost a duty to tame them as one would tame a dog. “Shrew literature” was not an uncommon type of literature during this time, as many sixteenth century men were obsessed with the creation of the “ideal” woman. Brown writes, “most traditional shrew literature panders to misogynistic portrayals of women and clearly favors the male- typically a rational husband tormented by a loquacious, scolding, ralling, irrationally violent woman” (Brown). Brown’s view on shrew literature is undoubtedly seen in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Unlike most other women she has encountered, Katherine is not ready to blindly accept male-superiority and so she, in turn, is not accepted by society. Katherine is strong and independent and she has the guts to subvert the patriarchal institution of the contemporary society. But her, as a heroine with such character is not accepted by the contemporary society, so in the end, she is seen as needing to be tamed. Men are credited for the taming of women, and taming is seen as driving them to become obedient and meek women by any means possible. In The Taming of The Shrew, Gremio comments that Katherine “is too rough for me” (1.1.55) and goes on to comment on his dislike for her free spirit with the lines, "though her father be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell" (124-126). With these lines, Germio is stating that being married to a woman who speaks up and portrays her original thoughts and ideas would be equivilent to marrying hell. He believes that having take a wife who does not fit the “ideal” image of a female constructed during this time would be unbearable. Like Gremio, Hortensio also calls Katherine a “devil” and further states that she will not get husband if she does not act gently and mildly, as an ideal woman should. Thus Katherine’s character is depicted as an undesireable woman simply because she is not willing to be oppressed in order to attract men through her soft manners and feminine behaviour. While discussing the play from feminine perspectives, Dorothea Kehler states, The explicit and implicit subjects of this play--arranged marriages, the authority of fathers and husbands, the obedience expected from daughters and wives, the economic helplessness of most women--were issues and experiences that touched the lives of everyone in Shakespeare’s audience. (Kehler pp.31-42) With these lines, Kehler is arguing that The Taming of The Shrew was not only a play, but a scenario that was all to familiar to the males and females watching the play. The women could relate wholeheartedly with poor Katherine as her individuality and spirit is broken, while men sympathized with Petruchio’s struggle to “tame” her.
The historians and feminists alike have pointed out that women were undoubtedly suppressed in all meanings of the word during the Elizabethan period. The suppression came from the egos and problems with insecurity among the men of that era. As demonstrated by the historians and feminists,
Feminists and Cultural Historians have convincingly demonstrated that ‘rebellious women’ were a concern for Englishmen during the late sixteenth and early seventeenthcenturies. Evidence of anxiety about disorderly women can be found at multiple discursive sites such as popular plays, ballads, accounts of domestic crimes, etc (Detmer 294).
The author, Detmer, connects Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew’s taming strategy with the violence of male authority and supremacy.
Katherine is viewed as a hostage while Petruchio is a kidnapper. Petruchio abuses Katherine in a systematic and sophisticated manner, to the point where it almost does to seem to be abusive. As stated by Detmer, “the abuser and the hostage-taker assert complete control over the victim’s thoughts and actions through fear and intimidation” (Detmer p.284). The end of the story is interpreted by Detmer as Kate’s “proud mind, that is, her will or her sense of self” (Detmer p.281), is squashed, or “killed”, by “kindness” (4.2.179). Even if Shakespeare has depicted the story as a light comedy, there is a violence hidden within the lines of the story. “The play locates both women’s objected positions in the social order of early modern England and the costs exacted for resistance” (Boose 923). Petruchio is very cunning and well knows exactly how to tame his wife and crush her spirit without physical violence. The controlling and coercive methods Petruchio uses to tame Katherine are similar to the actions found in one particular kind of domestic-violence dynamic, known as the Stockholm syndrome (Detmer. p.284). Shakespeare's Petruchio is, in terms of Stockholm-syndrome categories, the quintessential abuser (Detmer. p.284). Another author, Brown, further claims that 'Petruchio is not interested in a wife as human being or a companion; rather he sees the woman as a source of financial security and cares only about himself.” (Brown 292). She goes on to state that “men want to make their wives into models of womanly submissiveness and obedience”(Brown 294), which was a common goal of many males during this century. On surface level, Petruchio’s actions are not necessarily viewed as violent, because no physical beating is involved in Katherine’s taming, but his measures are just as harmful. By “taming” Katherine, like one would a horse,
Petruchio breaks her spirit, kills her self confidence and her self image, leaving her relying solely on him to survive. According to Brown, Katherine is an unfortunate fighter, who has lost her war and finally surrenders herself to the male supremacy
I am asham'd that women are so simple war wheret hey should kneel for peace,
To offer and sway,
Or seek forrule, supremacy,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.(162-65)
In the end, Shakespeare welcomes the alteration of Katherine and urges his readers to do the same. Shakespeare forces his audience to believe that Katherine’s previous behaviour was undesierable to all involved, therefore her acceptance of oppression was the appropriate and best outcome for not only Petruchio, but Katherine herself. Boose argues with this statement, stating, “and thus, as Kate is being "gentled" and manipulated to enter the feminine enclosure of the sex-and-gender system, the audience is also being strategically manipulated to applaud her for embracing that fate” (Boose 194). Because Petruchio, and sixteenth century society, finally accepts Katherine, the readers are made to believe that this was the best thing that could happen to Katherine regarding the circumstances. While describing the female submissiveness and male dominance, Shakespeare uses some significant actions such as throwing off the hat. Beck in her article “Shakespeare's The Taming of The Shrew” referred the historian Stephen Greenblatt conclusion on Shakespeare's use of “Fetichism of Costume” that Kate's final action of discarding her cap “demonstrates [Petruchio's] authority over his ‘tamed wife’” (Beck 5)
On the background of this stereotypical view of women, one comes across the very different character of Britomart in The Faerie Queene. Unlike typical Elizabethan damsels in distress, Britomart’s character is portrayed as a brave female with a fighting spirit and the sword skills to match. Britomart is a brave knight as well as the epitome of chastity. Britomart, also known as the “Virgin Knight,” is young, beautiful and extremely brave. But more than her bravery, Britomart is appreciated for her chastity and her ultimate aim is to win her love, Artegal's mind. Had this aim not been there in her life, she would not have been portrayed as a chaste and virtuous character. Her character, thought to have been based off of Queen Elizabeth I, best exemplifies Spenser's ambivalent depiction of woman's role in society and worth.
In Shakespeare's representation of virtuous and vicious ladies, a comparison is made between Katherine and her sister Bianca. Katherine is seen as self-conceited, arrogant, ill-tempered and ill mannered unlike her “ideal” sister, Bianca. Katherine is portrayed as a vicious character merely because she is rebel. If Katherine’s characters is studied in depth from a psychoanalytical point of view, the various causes behind her nature can be brought to life. She is not fake, but rather extremely genuine in a time where being female and being yourself was very frowned upon. Katherine does not want to hide who she is, and is adament that society should accept her, and all women, exactly as they are and should not impose unjust rules on them. The good and bad qualities she possesses are disclosed openly, whether it be it her pride or her selfishness or the jealously she feels for her perfect, obedient younger sister. On the other hand, Bianca is superfluous, and hides her real personality. Bianca attempts to be the picture of an ideal sixteenth century woman by being loyal, obedient, and more than eager to please her father and male suitors. Bianca attempts to create her image as an ideal lady in the minds of the people. Selfishness is a vice that is associated with the evil ladies. Although she is an ideal woman, one cannot claim that Bianca is completely innocent and selfless. She has a strong desire to win the mind of a handsome man with good fortune, and because of this, can be viewed as decietful and selfish. In sixteenth century England, the virtuous, meek, obedient ladies had the ultimate chance of winning the hearts of men. Bianca has become successful in establishing her image as a good, loyal, obedient, chaste and kind, who is an epitome of ideal feminism. Although she has come to represent the ideal woman, as Una has in The Faeries Queene, In that case, both Shakespeare and Spenser have not succeeded in giving full justice even to bad female characters.
O is that Elizabethan Age was a contradictory age. The absolute monarchy of the era was a woman, Queen Elizabeth I. She, as a woman, ruled England for 45 years, which was a considerably long time span for any monarch, let alone a female. Queen Elizabeth was well respected and honored by men and by the English society, despite her undesirable gender. Because Elizabeth was the Queen, she was immune to the barriers placed on women during this time, but the common women were deprived of the same priviledges due to their gender. The very same men who respected Elizabeth publicly, imposed excessive constraints on the women in their very own families. These common women were kept away from social, political, economic, legal and cultural rights. Elizabeth hardly took strong initiatives to elevate the condition of women of her era, and although she could have made major changes to eliviate the oppression faced at the time, she stood by and allowed the subjugation of women under the patriarchal system and powerful religious authority. There were certain protocols of feminism imposed on women during the time, and those protocols determined their behaviour and overall way of living. The contemporary literature produced at the time also inflicted certain values on females since childhood. Their thoughts since childhood were blocked under male chauvinism. If they even attempted to raise their voice, it was crushed by the awareness of the limitations of their femininity. This is the tragedy of feminism in Sixteenth Century.