Gender Roles In Romeo And Juliet

Since the beginning of time, there has been a significant divide between the male and female genders. As if it were an unwritten rule, men have always held a superior position within society while women are continuously overlooked and shadowed throughout history. This social construct between men and women has been noted in all aspects of life, but one of the most prominent cases of this can be found within literature. Early literature has had a devastating influential impact upon cultures and civilizations, but it has also implemented the gender divide dramatically for centuries to come. Within these early literature works, gender played a key role on how male and female characters were portrayed and characterized but also how large of a

Many times men were also shown to be very aggressive to show dominance. On the other hand, women were often given the roles of mothers and caretakers while younger girls were either pure and whole or were written to have “loose morals''. A noteworthy example of this can be noticed in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Over the course of the play many of these gender stereotypes and social norms were used to shape the main sequence of characters, to not only create the dramatic and well known play we have today but to also showcase how the time period can drastically change the outcome.

Gender was one of the main factors that went into the characterization of each and every character in the play Romeo and Juliet. A noticeable example of this can be seen in the beginning of the play. The most prominent main character, Romeo, is heartbroken since the girl he fell for, Rosaline, did not love him back. “She will not lay siege loing terms,/ nor bide th’ encounter of assailing eyes,/ nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold” (1. 1. 206-208). In

Many young girls were expected to be married off at around the age of fifteen because it was seen as an “un- pure” if they were to wait until they were older. Over the course of the play, the topic of young thirteen year old Juliet being married off is quite frequent and becomes one of the main focal points of the plot. During one of the early scenes of the play Juliet’s father, Lord Capulet and Paris could be heard conversing about Paris potentially taking Juliet’s hand in marriage. However, Lord Capulet was very much against the idea, stating “she hath not seen the change of fourteen years./ Let two more summers wither in their pride/ Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride” (1. 2. 9-11). For the time period that Romeo and Juliet takes place in, this was a very unusual statement for Lord Capulet to say, considering it was a common practice at the time and they came from a very wealthy and prestigious family. Even after lots of pushing by Paris, Lord Capulet ultimately concluded that unless Juliet fell in love with Paris it would fall upon her if she was to be married. Later on in the play, Juliet eventually would be forced against her will to marry Paris after the death of her cousin