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Twelfth Night Gender Roles

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In the Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare he generated characters tackling the roles of gender in addition are defining the boundaries expected from them. Throughout his plays he created Katherine from The Taming of the Shrew who is from Padua Italy. Juliet from Romeo and Juliet is from Verona Italy and Viola from Twelfth Night is set in the imaginary dukedom of Illyria. William Shakespeare generated these heroines with the traits of a feminist and the background of the three characters is unknown and they are similar because they embody traits of a feminist, and they have the traits of headstrong and intelligent women in the way they are portrayed in the movie adaptations based on plays written by William Shakespeare.
The three focal …show more content…

In the movie when they cut soccer and her ex-boyfriend says he is better are than her. Viola is similar and that is how the roles of the character affect her, but they are also affecting Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. In the play Juliet is enduring a transformation of being an adolescent teenager to becoming a woman. Her character is very innocent but has the same strengths of Katherine from Taming of the Shrew because Katherine is a feminist, strong and open minded and Juliet and Viola share the same personality. Therefore Viola is similar because she proves people wrong and Katherine constantly proves Bianca her sister wrong, although they endure countless arguments and Katherine has a sense of envy towards her sister because they are polar opposites. Juliet is also a polar opposite with the rest of the girls in her life, her personality is that she is forced to mature very quickly and has a sense of falling in love for the first time and becoming a woman when she meets Romeo and her life is changed forever. When it came to the movie adaptation Romeo and Juliet the character Juliet is enduring that same maturity but displays a sense of innocence toward others and vulnerability that was very unique. It sparked a connection toward the characters Viola and Katherine because they all act in ways displaying attributes of feminism when it came to the situations they are thrown into. These situations are played out in a familiar manner when it came to the movies and the plays especially in the play The Taming of the Shrew where Katherine is struggling with women

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However, their personalities have subtle differences that eventually lead up to their fates at the end of their stories. For instance, Maria is depicted from (quite literally) the beginning scene as a strong-minded, confident young woman. She knows what she wants and will pursue her passions without regard to her ‘responsibilities’ to her family. On the other hand, Juliet is innocent and timid in the way most women of the time were expected to behave. Her values are more strongly related to what her family wishes her to do and what is expected of her as a woman during that time period.

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Juliet is the lover of Romeo, but is from the house of Capulet which is a that time in the middle of a feud with the house of Montague( Romeo’s Family) and in the play she is brung into adulthood quickly. She helps develop the theme of gender roles of females through all the events in which she must disobey her father who was going to disown her for not wanting to marry Paris because she is secretly in love with Romeo, “CAPULET: Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!I tell thee what: get thee to church o ' Thursday,Or never after look me in the face. Speak not; reply not; do not answer me.”

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The portrayal of women in Romeo and Juliet is complex. On the one hand, the play presents women as passive and submissive, particularly in their relationships with men. Juliet, for example, is expected to obey her father and marry the man he has chosen for her, even though she is in love with Romeo. She tries to defy him so she can be with Romeo but it doesn’t turn out her way. Similarly, Lady Capulet is portrayed as a dutiful wife who defers to her husband's authority and does not challenge him.

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Gender roles play a major factor in defining characters as who they are to their roots. In Shakespear’s play, Romeo and Juliet, despite their young age and high social class, they as well are highly expected to follow the strict gender roles that the society of Verona holds for them. The defining of stereotypical feminine or masculine traits based on gender, is highly prominent in the play, it gives an insight to the society of the time, the mindset of the writer but also the diversity certain humans hold to defy these stereotypes. Though Romeo is supposed to exhibit a masculine nature of being assertive, practical, and decisive, his character fails to do so. As well as Juliet's character refusing to express vital feminine traits, more or less

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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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When Viola goes to deliver Orsino’s message of love to Olivia, her disguise as a young male deceives Olivia into falling in love with her. It can be argued that Olivia and Viola are, in certain aspects, mirror images of each other; they are both women bred with gentle, feminine traits, they are the only member of their family left (or at least believe to be in Viola’s case), they are both mourning the death of their brother, and not to mention that their names are essentially made up the same letters rearranged. In this conflict of misplaced love, Viola learns more about the ambiguity of sexuality. She also begins to grasp the notion that gender identity and sexuality is something more fluid that it is solid. Gender can be imitated through one’s actions and clothing and sexual orientation isn’t always firm.

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For a woman to show interests in current affairs, express opinions, write literature was unladylike. Viola, fending for herself, in distant land, disguises herself as a boy named Cesario. Cross-dressing, in Elizabethan society, was seen as highly immoral. Viola 's male disguise “allows her to escape the confinement of a single perspective and a single voice by momentarily unfixing sexual stereotypes (184)”(Melchoir). Furthermore, Viola’s situation in Twelfth Night is not typical of an Elizabethan woman because she proves herself to be capable and intelligent.

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Shakespeare’s renowned play Twelfth Night centers around love, both in platonic and romantic instances. Characters display elements of self, brotherly, amorous, and friendly love towards one another; however, of the relationships portrayed, the strongest ones are those between men. In contrast, relationships between men and women lack depth and sincerity due to the lapse of communication between the opposing genders. Men are able to express their feelings to one another more freely, which gives their bonds strength that heterosexual relationships fail to display.

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