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Gender Roles In Greek Theatre

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Ancient plays throughout different cultures in history contained all male cast, failing to even cast women as they were deemed inferior. Tradition held that the culture in western societies restricted women’s roles. Even as female characters were indeed written in certain plays, the role were portrayed by a male. They regarded women being able to portray these roles as dangerous and that having men play them “neutralized” the danger it possessed. The Greek’s and the Roman’s both held these views making it impossible for women to be on stage.
English theater was criticized in its early days, Christianity decrees ensured that theater was practically unheard of for hundreds of years. That all changed when the church itself resurrected theater for its own use in the middle ages. It started Miracle Plays that portrayed stories of the bible. This, however, started theater groups that started portraying their own plays for profit and entertainment. All of these early English plays were solely made, portrayed, played and viewed by males of the era. Women’s role in old England was still reserved, it wasn’t correct for women to be seen in public, it was indecent. This made the idea of a female actor unheard of and impossible for the time. Up to this point …show more content…

There is some speculation of women pretending to be men in these times to play female characters as that was the only way they could be on stage. This, however, can’t be proven. The perception in society was that the theater was better suited for men. The roles of women in English drama were all roles conceived by men, because all the ancient playwrights were men. It is a testament to how great theater of the time was that it became so popular with men speaking love soliloquies to each other. The few characters that happened to be women in these early plays lacked strength, personalities,

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Within the skakespearean times many men played women 's roles in the theatre. Young boys played the roles of romantic heroines and the maids in the early performances. Boys were considered as boys up until this voices broke and hit puberty,this is where they felt they turned into men. There 's is no evidence to show that makes over the age of 18 very rarely played females before the restoration. Males actors who played female roles were normally no older then 16, the main age makes were was 14-16 years old.

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Transportation was limited, and styles were very conservative and sophisticated. With the turn of the century, people were waiting for the next “big thing” to revolutionize the world. Feminism was new, radical, and becoming prevalent. The characters in the play would have been very aware of feminism, especially the women, seeing that they appear well educated. Also at this time, art was switching its focus from impressionism to emotion, which lent the art to portraying more emotion and surrealism.

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1551 Words | 7 Pages

In Euripides’s The Bacchae and in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, I found the gender roles in these particular plays to be very interesting because this was my first exposure to cross-dressing in works of literature. In The Bacchae, women play a huge role because women are often portrayed as feminine and inferior in many past works, however, in The Bacchae, the women of Thebes decide to rebel against the men and join the Greek God of grape harvesting, wine, fertility, and partying, in the woods. The women were manipulated by Dionysus and were turned into maenads because they joined Dionysus and rejected the norms for women, to stay in their place and they all went from the first world they were living in, Thebes, to the second world,

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“In Shakespeare's time acting was a profession only open to boys and men” (Globe Education, Actors). During this time period women were not allowed to act in performances so men played all the girl parts in a show. Along with the actors came the audience. The audience during the Elizabethan Era was much different from today’s audiences. “The audience went to the theatre to be seen and admired, dressed in their best clothes… these people were not necessarily well behaved.

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Each female character is treated by men as a possession. However, there are also moments when they are presented as confident and challenge a male authority. This would have been exiting for Shakespeare’s female Elizabethan audience as women

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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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Theatre has been around for centuries, throughout time theatre was not used like the way we use it today. Theatre has evolved throughout the years, but people might confuse the term theatre and drama. Theatre is to see while drama is to do. Performance and story telling has changed from the Greek and Medieval times to the 21st century. Greek Theatre and Medieval Theatre used religious rituals.

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In the 16th century, not only in England but also almost in all the countries, all the families were “under” the patriarchal society. A patriarchy, from the ancient Greek patriarches, was a society where power was held by and passed down through the elder males. When modern historians and sociologists describe a "patriarchal society," they mean that men hold the positions of power: head of the family unit, leaders of social groups, boss in the workplace and heads of government. Unfortunately, this fact still exists, even today in the 21st century in many countries, especially in the Muslim countries where women have restricted rights. Patriarchal society, manhood, and the sense of masculinity, in my opinion, raise two main issues: the issue

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The controversial treatment of gender issues in Much Ado would have been central to its impact on Elizabethan audiences familiar with an extensive literature on the role of women. Independent, assertive, unruly women commanded attention on stage; the traditional pattern of feminine behaviour was under strain. Women were supposed to be silent, gentle, passive and submissive but Queen Elizabeth I herself projected an ambiguous male-female identity. The erosion of traditional gender ideologies created anxieties about the subversion of the social order.

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Paul Vu Dr. Elizabeth C. Ramírez THTR 475A.03 2 May 2017 Macbeth and Medea: Breaking Expectations Macbeth by William Shakespeare and Medea by Euripides are known for their powerful critiques on the social expectations of women. Women during the time of Elizabethan and Greek theatre were often stereotyped and considered the weaker sex. Men were depicted as strong individuals who supported and protected women. However, both Shakespeare and Euripides broke expectations by portraying strong and iconic female characters in their respective plays. The idea of a strong female character was often unheard of during the time of Elizabethan and Greek Theatre.

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It may seem like Shakespeare treats his female characters worse than his male characters, but it is his female characters that drive the plot

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Men were seen as masculine and powerful. Shakespeare heavily illustrates the sixteenth century stereotypical gender roles throughout his play, Twelfth Night. During Shakespearean times, women were prohibited from performing on stage, instead, men played their roles. In Twelfth Night, the imitation of the opposite gender originates from necessity and fear. Viola dressed as a man named Cesario to protect herself when she arrives upon foreign land.

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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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Feminist theatre came into being as a by product of the experimental theatre movement of the 1970s’ and 1980’. It was an alternate theatre which enabled women to explore their creative talents on stage independently. Feminist theatre served as a means of constructing an exclusive feminist discourse on stage that questioned the patriarchal norms of female subjugation. Its movement was towards the construction of a theatre space where women are no longer mere stage props. They started functioning as the creators of drama rather than being confined to the roles of wife, lover, mother or lunatic.

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