Patriarchy and Literature

Western society has been characterized as a patriarchy, a male-dominated social order in which the father image is a powerful one. That image has been presented in different ways in different media and at different time periods. One important patriarchal image in literature is embodied in the title character in Shakespeare's King Lear, though this is an image of a patriarch who fails at a key point in his life to live up to the patriarchal image. In our own time, Joseph P. Kennedy is seen as the patriarch of an important political family in American life, and while he remains a somewhat shadowy figure because he has been overshadowed by his famous children, he still embodies a patriarchal image which can be compared to that of Lear to show the persistence of the patriarchal image through time and its importance as a means of ordering society.

Consider first the image as it appears in King Lear, where it is bound with the role of king, a role that is itself an example of the patriarchy. While England may have had queens as well, the line of descent is through the male. Had Queen Elizabeth had a brother, for instance, she would not have been queen even if she were the older. This draws attention to the plight of King lear, who also has no son and so who must consider how his kingdom will be divided and governed by his three daughters. His crime is first in trying to divide the kingdom among the three women rather than on the long-accepted basis of patrilineal descent

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line because she is strong, and she thinks of her husband as feminine because he is moral and thus in her estimation weak. The supposed masculine virtues include not only strength but a certain hard-heartedness, a steeling of oneself against emotions in order to have the will to do whatever must be done for success. Lear tells Albany of his plight, and Albany does not understand because he has not seen how Goneril has been treating her father. Lear speaks about the matter when Albany can hear: Hear, Nature, hear, dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend To make this creature fruitful. Into her womb convey sterility. . . Turn all her mother's pains and benefits To laughter and contempt , that she may feel How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child! (I.iv. 297-300, 308-311). Goneril treats Albany as someone who does not need to know anything when he asks what this is all about: "Never afflict yourself to know the cause,/ But let his disposition have that scope/ That dotage gives it" (I.iv. 313-315). She also makes her view of her husband clear when she upbraids him for his concern about her father: No, no, my lord, This milky gentleness and course of yo

Category: Literature - P