Gender Roles

The Effect of Gender Roles on Character Development

Classic British literature from multiple eras and times provide a host of layered and complicated characters displaying impressive success in embodying the complexities of humanity, still in quite early times of the written form of the art of storytelling. Such characters are also presented through varying forms and styles. For instance, while The Canterbury Tales is a comical novel about the collection of very different people come together on a pilgrimage, "The Duchess of Malfi" is a tragic play involving people of politics brought together by their various individual motives. Even between these two different styles of writing as well as separate eras of origins, similarities can be

It would almost seem perceivable that female characters would assume very low importance throughout these eras of literature, however writers like Chaucer and Webster actually make them stand out, be noticed, and even participate with esteem in their plots. Whether it is for the purpose of accentuating women’s lower place in society compared to men, or further to actually openly defy that circumstance, strong female characters such as the Duchess of "The Duchess of Malfi" and the Wife of Bath from The Canterbury Tales refuse to go unnoticed. The Wife of Bath absolutely demands attention in every aspect of her personality, from her dress, to her physical characteristics, to her boisterous attitude, all which Chaucer clearly portrays in the prologue of the novel. Already, the Wife of Bath’s character is rebellious to what that time’s culture cornered women into being. She is provocative but not inappropriate, independent yet not quite a nuisance, and even has had multiple marriages, which surely would have been disgraceful had they not all been legitimate because her husbands all passed

The Duchess in "The Duchess of Malfi" is another character example of women taking a dominative stance in marriage. Once again, she also embodies one of the main themes of her proper literary work: power. In the case of "The Duchess of Malfi" however, the power theme is still very much biased toward the men, as the Duke remains in complete control over his sister. The Duchess is only able to retain much power in her marriage with Antonio, which she was actually the one to initiate in the first place and often makes decisions for both of them.

The fact that this play’s theme is still in favor of men over women in society is very significant considering the difference in the time eras when "The Duchess of Malfi" was written compared to The Canterbury Tales. "The Duchess of Malfi" was written over two centuries later, and the character representing the female’s place in society, whom is of a high political position, is actually even more controlled because of her gender. With only these two characters as reference, it would almost appear that the English society had not improved, or possibly even worsened as far as the way women in general were