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Shakespeare's influence
Elizabethan era influences in Shakespeare's works
Shakespeare's influence
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Shakespeare's influence
Elizabethan era influences in Shakespeare's works
Shakespeare's influence
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Hamlet's words, “frailty thy, name is a woman” (1.2.148), forever redefined femininity in literature. Throughout works such as The Great Gatsby and Hamlet women are never treated as equals to their male counterparts and their role is characterized by misogyny, dependency and utter obedience. According to Aristotle, “the courage of a man lies in commanding, a woman's lies in obeying; that 'matter yearns for form, as the female for the male and the ugly for the beautiful”. Hamlet and The Great Gatsby reveal compelling parallels in their portrayal of the role of women. The mistreatment and inequality of women is a predominant issue in each work and is illustrated through the two main female protagonists, Queen Gertrude and Daisy Buchanan.
As You Like It, by William Shakespeare, is a play that follows Rosalind and her conquest for love. Rosalind falls in love with Orland, flees with Celia, and disguises herself as Ganymede. While Rosalind is a good friend and leader she constantly makes derogatory comments about women, showing her prejudice and predetermined beliefs about them. Looking at Rosalind’s quotes, her attitudes toward women, and her actions, we can clearly see her preconceived notions about women.
In the reading for this week, Friedlander discusses how the rise of female musicians in the early 1960s reflected the sexism inherent in society at the time through the labelling of talented performers simply as “girl groups” (pg. 72). This term infantilized artists like The Ronettes, The Shirelles and The Crystals, and by extension, implied that rock music was still a male domain. This is supported by the fact that the production teams behind hit records such as ‘Be My Baby’ were predominantly male. According to Friedlander, if a “girl group” achieved a million-seller record in the early 1960s, they would collectively only receive around $30,000-$40,000 to split between members thanks to a 3-4% royalty rate (pg. 74). Although singles like ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ (The Crystals) and ‘Baby, I Love You’ (The Ronettes) involved little creative contribution from the performers (both of these examples were produced and co-written by Phil
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
Claudia Eves Miss Lake Year 9 English Text Analysis: Much Ado About Nothing How does Shakespeare use language and characters in Much Ado About Nothing to explore issues of societal gender expectations? Discuss this with reference to the play. A play by definition is ‘a dramatic composition or piece; drama’ (according to Dictionary.com), Much Ado About Nothing - an immensely popular comedic play of Shakespeare’s, does not fall short of that description. However, behind the comedy and amusement of Much Ado About Nothing lays the ugly truth about inequality between genders and gender roles throughout the Elizabethan era and society.
At what point does the price of secrecy become too high to pay? In most cases, secrets destroy relationships and lives. However, a kept secret can be to the benefit of others in certain situations. In Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, Victor believes he is doing exactly that for his family when he keeps the monster a secret. In addition to that, Victor is also trying to protect himself from the opinions of everyone around him.
As many know Shakespeare is a masterful storyteller. Many of his tragic plays such as Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet have a keen sense of fate versus free will, but it is not just in his tragedies that this is seen. In his comedy, “Twelfth Night”, the theme of fate versus free will reverses the expected gender roles. Although it was written in the Elizabethan days, gender roles are constantly seen. In this play, Shakespeare seems to reverse the role of men and women, making women to be dependent and not reliant on men.
The very act of cross-dressing itself was subversive, especially in Spain where costume was hugely important, not just on stage but in real life. Literary critic William Egginton notes in An Epistemology of the Stage, that when it came to costume the "Spanish public was extremely sensitive to such signifiers of class and could not, for example, tolerate or comprehend a scene in which the signs of social status presented by costume and speech would conflict". (402) With the audience so sensitive to costume details, what must they have thought about Rosaura 's male attire? Women dressing as men was a common device used by playwrights in the Golden Age (mujer vestida de hombre ) and one wonders was it merely because it was practical?
Masculine and Feminine Roles in Steinbeck’s “Chrysanthemums” In the story “The Chrysanthemums”, by John Steinbeck, Elisa Allen lives an unsatisfactory life as she desires more than what is bestowed upon her. The reader learns Elisa’s husband is culpable for not seeing the beauty of his wife, leaving an open door for the antagonist, a traveler, to prey upon Elisa’s. Steinbeck uses Masculine and Feminine roles of the early 20th century, Internal Conflict, and an antagonist, to show Elisa’s struggle for Identity. Steinbeck illustrates Masculine and feminine roles of the 20th century in the “Chrysanthemums” to show Elisa’s struggle with identity.
Gender Roles in Macbeth The characters of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth deviate from accepted gender roles of the Elizabethan era. Throughout the play, social constructs of expected masculine and feminine roles are defied by both major and minor characters. Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare explores and challenges stereotypical gender roles through female characters exhibiting masculine behaviours, introducing non-traditional relationships, and portraying examples of sexism. Shakespeare illustrates a world where traditional gender roles are broken.
“And though she be but little, she is fierce” -William Shakespeare. In today’s day and age, one of the greatest topics of debate is gender roles. It is evident everywhere, from cyberspace to the streets of home, from online petitions to marches across the country such as the Women’s March. Shakespeare lived in the Elizabethan Era of England, where Queen Elizabeth I, the virgin queen ruled.
It may seem like Shakespeare treats his female characters worse than his male characters, but it is his female characters that drive the plot
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.
One of the main examples of fading tradition is the Hutchinson family; Mrs. Hutchinson particularly. Mrs. Hutchinson is a clear representation of what was known to be the typical housewife. On perhaps the most significant day celebrate by all of the towns people, Mrs. Hutchinson arrives late. Joe Summers comments on her late arrival which she instantly responds back to by saying, “Wouldn’t have me leave all m’dishes in the sink, now, would you, Joe?” (Jackson 106).
Gender was no longer seen in terms of biological or anatomical but social and cultural. For Judith Butler, Gender is a cultural construct formed through repeated ‘acting’ which gives the notion of a static gender while at the same time obscuring the instability of a person’s gender act (Butler 179). In this sense, cross-dressing in Shakespeare becomes an important motif as it supports the fluidity of gender characteristic. Cross-dressing, according to Marjorie Garber, points to the ‘constructedness of gender categories’ (Garber 9).