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Comparing Female Characters In Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, And Othello

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Shakespeare plays vary in genre greatly. Romances, tragedies, histories, and comedies and each had it’s own way of blending the sex and gender of it’s characters. Each genre had its own rules for how sex and gender were used, by both playwright and the characters within the play, and limitations those uses had. Although women come to terrible, tragic ends in Shakespeare’s tragedies the cause for those tragedies are the fates and whims of male characters. Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, and Othello all have women that face tragic deaths but those tragedies are primarily caused by the choices the male title characters make. There is also a “detachment from sexual violence” (Gajowski 71) in his tragedies. In Othello, when he murders Desdemona, Gajowski
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The Shakespearean play displays sexual innocence between genders. The play displays that genders do not have the same expectations, men do not have any expectations when it comes to affairs with other women but it is expected for women to be a virgin when they are married.

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Similar to Hamlet, Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus is very male-dominated with only two prominent women: Tamora and Lavinia. These two leading ladies are complete opposites in this play, however Shakespeare structures them both to meet society’s destructive patriarchal roles. Tamora, the object of male desire and Lavinia a strong woman victimized by a male-controlled society. Lavinia and Tamora’s conflicting traits are demonstrated in Act II, Scene III when Tamora’s sons prepare to sexually assault Lavinia and Tamora refuses to acknowledge Lavinia’s pleas for her feminine compassion. Lavinia curses at Tamora, “No grace, no womanhood?

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Gender roles play a major factor in defining characters as who they are to their roots. In Shakespear’s play, Romeo and Juliet, despite their young age and high social class, they as well are highly expected to follow the strict gender roles that the society of Verona holds for them. The defining of stereotypical feminine or masculine traits based on gender, is highly prominent in the play, it gives an insight to the society of the time, the mindset of the writer but also the diversity certain humans hold to defy these stereotypes. Though Romeo is supposed to exhibit a masculine nature of being assertive, practical, and decisive, his character fails to do so. As well as Juliet's character refusing to express vital feminine traits, more or less

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Olivia Lynch Mrs. Butterfield AP Lit 5/1/16 When you are ready to dive into the vast world of Shakespeare, you can begin by using what is known as a critical lens. The lens that may help you understand the background details of one of Shakespeare’s plays would be the Historical lens. Although there are many different lens that you can use to interpret a story, the Historical Lens is a great lens to dive into to find what really influenced the great ideas of William Shakespeare as he wrote Hamlet including the role gender plays, the comparison of Elizabeth Tudor, and the religious incorporation throughout the play. First, we can take the Historical Lens and dive into the idea of how gender roles were highly represented in Hamlet

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The strongest friendship is between Desdemona, the princess and wife of Othello and, Emilia, Desdemona 's attendant as well as Iago 's wife. Together throughout this tragedy, these friends battle the men in their lives. However, the way these go about it are completely different. There are two types of women, the ones who allow to be eaten, and the ones who don 't. Because of Emilia 's personality, she does not allow herself to be eaten, unlike Desdemona. Emilia is the practical and confident woman of her time.

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This study will focus on the way in which Shakespeare crafts his play and uses dramatic devices in his portrayal of Lady Macbeth in order to confront the gender stereotypes of the time, femininity and the natural order of society. During the early 17th century there was a substantial fear that if women were liberated from their domestic, maternal roles, the historically patriarchal society would unravel. With prevailing challenges of gender such as “When you durst do it, then you were a man” Shakespeare uses the character of Lady Macbeth to transgress the natural limits concomitant with her sex. In order to be able to answer the research question, it is vital to concretely establish the contemporary gender roles and the context of the play.

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It can be hypothesised that Shakespeare was testing the waters to break gender norms and perceiving women as independent, dominant and powerful beings through his

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During Shakespeares time men were considered superior to women. Int this patriarchal society, women were seen as property, first owned by their fathers and then passed on to their husbands. They were considered the weaker sex and always needed to be watched or protected by a man. Women usually were married at a young age, and were only married off by their fathers for social class or money. When married, women were expected to bear children, and could not get a divorce if they wanted one.

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Their tough archetypes were always present in many plays and reinforced the idea of male superiority. This fact held true, especially for a certain tragic classic by William Shakespeare. There was a misogynistic mentality towards women in Romeo and Juliet, evident through the way women were shown as objects, portrayed as weak, and made to seem unable to dictate their own lives. Men in Romeo and Juliet could be seen acting like owners towards women. Women were seen as nothing more than possessions, as illustrated when Romeo first described Juliet as, “My lady…/my love” (II.ii.10).

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In today’s world, gender expectations and roles of men and women are a highly debated topic. However, the reconsidering of these expectations is not a new phenomenon. Set in Verona, Italy, the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare explores the reversal and fluidity of characteristics usually assigned to a specific gender. In this play, two young people fall in love and end up tragically taking their lives as a result of their forbidden love. Shakespeare suggests that men are not necessarily masculine, women are not necessarily feminine, and that when people are forced by society to act the way their gender is “supposed” to, problems will arise.

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Shakespeare’s plays almost always surround the actions, affection, and or plot revolving around women. In the last three plays we’ve read, that being The Winter’s Tale, Othello, and Hamlet, the women of each play are prominent members of the story in a society where women are usually second to men. However, in many of Shakespeare’s plays he draws on ancient Greek myths in a number of ways not just in names. Also the creation of women by the gods, to punish man after Prometheus stole fire. In The Winters Tale, King Leontes is driven made thinking his wife, the Queen is having an affair with his friend.

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Shakespeare's Othello is set during the Renaissance period and therefore the roles of the women in Othello are supposedly bounded by the period when women are considered to be of low intellect. In Othello, most male characters assume that women are inherently promiscuous, which explains why all three women characters in the play are accused of sexual infidelity. Yet Shakespeare develops the women to speak the most sense throughout the play and able to trust other characters in the play. To the men in Othello, female sexuality is a threatening force more than it is an attractive one.

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A Modern View of Feminist Criticism William Shakespeare 's "Othello” can be analyzed from a feminist perspective. This criticism focuses on relationships between genders, like the patterns of thoughts, behavior, values, enfranchisement, and power in relations between and within sexes. A feminist examination of the play enables us to judge the distinctive social esteems and status of women and proposes that the male-female power connections that become an integral factor in scenes of Othello impact its comprehension. I believe that the critical lens that provides modern society with the most compelling view of literature is Feminist Criticism because it analyzes distrust and disloyalty among relationships, women being treated as possessions

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While Desdemona is a remarkably strong character, Emilia also displays independence unmatched by any other female in Othello, and there are multiple details of Shakespeare and his time that may have prompted such a portrayal. In Elizabethan England, many women worked behind the scenes of productions, like Shakespeare’s, as uncredited authors and editors (Crowley). Due to their anonymity, nobody can be sure that women were involved in Shakespeare’s plays nor Othello in particular, but there is a genuine possibility that female writers did have leverage. This may have had to do with how Emilia was portrayed as resilient from the time of Desdemona’s death all the way until her own, standing up for herself regardless of the ridicule it caused her (Iyasere). In fact, it even killed her in the end.

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First, the female characters are each a representation of a stereotypical woman and their roles in a male society. Next, the lives of the women in the play show how the oppressive nature of male society only succeeds through harming women while men reap the rewards. Finally, male society does not only hurt women, as the idea

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