Representations of Women in Shakespeare

Although the details differ from play to play, what these three plays share is a line of action that demonstrates the coping strategies of women who are obliged to find--and who proceed to enact--a specific and appropriate social role. The pattern The Taming of the Shrew as a whole can be said to define the pattern of female characterization in the play as well. The action of the play builds around the methods Petruchio uses to more or less domesticate Katherine, not to turn her into a drudge but rather to tame her as he would a pet falcon, to "cure her mad and headstrong humor" (IV.ii). Kate's character development is the content of Petruchio's determination to kill Kate's social wildness with kindness. By deliberately manipulating her experience of reality, frustrating her attempt to have a more or less normal domestic living experience, Petruchio aims to teach Kate a permanent lesson in her proper role as partner in enabling such experience in marriage. In the process, the play accomplishes two things. First, it defines the perimeter of marriage as a match between loving partners, each of whom incurs obligatio

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er words, a husband is entitled to a wife who is above social suspicion. Hero's good father Leonato thinks so, too, and when Hero swoons at the altar, his first comfort is his anticipation that she is likely to die from the shame of being exposed and thus save him the trouble of killing her himself: "Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes: / For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die, / Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames, / Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches, / Strike at thy life" (IV.i). Webster says that in Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare uses Don John to incite but then "disposes of a plot which he has never taken very seriously" (Webster 200). But even Webster, who adds that "we have known that it must all come out right in the end" (201), acknowledges its social undercurrent: The plot has held the shadow which gives depth to the whole picture; no one in the play is left untouched by it; no on is quite the same at the end as he was at the beginning, and we must emphasize this line of personal development. Shakespeare is drawing closer, perhaps unconsciously, to the theme of man under the pressure of circumstance; this undertone, barely audible, gives a depth we must not lose to the gaiety and
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Some common words found in the essay are:
IVii Kate's, Night's Dream, Sonnet CXVI, Don John, Oberon Titania, Ado Webster, Hermia Helena, Kate Petruchio, Hero Benedick, Dream Ado, midsummer night's, night's dream, midsummer night's dream, ed al rowse, annotated shakespeare, al rowse, clarkson potter, york clarkson, ed al, 3 vols, annotated shakespeare vol, shakespeare vol, york clarkson potter, vols york, shakespeare vol 1,
Approximate Word count = 2588
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)