Shakespeare's Strong Women

Abstract

srimythi@yahoo.co.in

Women in Shakespearean plays have always had important roles, sometimes the leading role. Whether they create the main conflicts and base of the plays, or bring up interesting moral and cultural questions, they are put in challenging situations. Some women are stronger than others, and their effect on the play is different for each one. They often surpass the male heroes. Shakespeare's women characters testify to his genius. They are drawn with neither anger nor condescension. In personality they vary. Some are warm, delightful, friendly; others cold, aloof, and scornful. Some speak with confidence; others with diffidence. They range in age from the youthful, joyous Juliet to the wizened, bitter Margaret. But most have a vitality; they grow and develop during the course of a drama. Their actions spring from a realistic confrontation with life as they learn the meaning of self-sovereignty for a woman in a patriarchal society.

Shakespeare focuses on this inequity. Men and women confront the same experience from opposite perspectives. By creating confident, attractive, independent women whom we like, he questions the wisdom of a power structure that insists they relinquish personal freedom. Some of his dramas question accepted patterns of behavior. Some stress the value of mutual respect between a man and a woman. Some reveal the confusion in a woman's mind when she seeks to understand the limits of her world. Occasionally, a drama documents the tragedy of a woman who loses her way and her sense of self when she seeks to conform.

This paper is an attempt to portray the strong women of Shakespeare.