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Shakespeare Gender Roles

608 Words3 Pages

Shakespeare has created many diverse and memorable characters within his works. Some of the more memorable of the bunch are his female characters. The distinct personalities of Beatrice and Katherine add to his works of comedy. The aggressive nature of Lady Macbeth and Tamora provide much more intensity to his tragedies. However, how Shakespeare characterizes the women in his plays is all very diverse. In some, they are portrayed as somewhat equal counterparts to the males they perform opposite of and others are depicted as the housewife, a caterer to all men, similar to how women were treated during Shakespeare’s era. But Shakespeare’s descriptions and personalities he creates for his female characters in most instances were in some ways out of character for the late 1500s and early 1600s. …show more content…

A significant amount of the women in his plays were depicted as adulterers. For example, Tamora, from Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, was having an affair with a black man. Gertrude, from the play Hamlet, married her dead husband’s brother very soon after he was murdered. Women in these days were expected to be married, cater to their husbands, and pretty much just blend into the background. The majority of Shakespeare’s female characters do not line up with the ideals of how a woman should act during this time period. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that all of the female roles were portrayed by men anyway, or maybe Shakespeare was an advocate for equality among

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