Women’s Roles in Literature & How it Portrays the Time Period Societal roles of women have evolved throughout history, and will likely continue to evolve as time transpires. In the play, King Lear, by William Shakespeare, elucidates how catastrophic sin is to you and others around you. In the novel, A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley, utilizes sin to demonstrate how it destroyed the family altogether. Overall both works, exposes the societal approval of men regulating women to fulfill their desires with their power. This is shown through how the women were treated and acted throughout the works. King Lear, by William Shakespeare, demonstrates this by writing out the scenes of the daughters appealing to their father’s whims in order to unveil the men exploited women through their power; for example, Shakespeare illustrates this when Lear; Tell me, my daughters,--Since now we will divest us both of rule, Interest of territory, cares of …show more content…
Like so many men in patriarchal society, he has long been accustomed to women—his wife, and then his daughters—serving his domestic needs(Pg 372, Hall) This deliberates how men often employed women for their everyday desires as they possessed the clout to do just that; this illustrates that in prior times women were subservient to the men’s needs and desires; this article may be aimed at A Thousand Acres, however it applies to King Lear as in that time period women’s roles were the identical. A key example in A Thousand Acres, is when Larry yells,”"I gave you everything, and I get nothing in return”(pg 182, Smiley). Larry presumes their daughters should be owe him and sees his daughters as ungrateful. The quote insinuates that Larry after what he did to his daughters that they still are required satisfy him; this indicates that even after the years of abuse, he believes that he can exploit them more because of his patriarchal authority. In King Lear, Lear