The Female Characters in

Shakespeares Comedies

I hereby officially declare and confirm that this thesis

has been researched and written by myself.

Esch-sur-Alzette, 12th April 2012

Tessy Lommel
Candidat professeur danglais au
Lyce Technique dEsch-sur-Alzette

The Female Characters in

Shakespeares Comedies

Lyce Technique dEsch-sur-Alzette

2012

Summary
Objectives
The aim of my travail de candidature consists in analysing the female
characters in Shakespeares comedies. Although Elizabethan women are usually
considered to be victims as they led rather restricted lives in a patriarchal society, I
want to prove that Shakespeares female characters were no victims but winning
types.
In order to prove this I will analyse what opportunities Shakespeares female
protagonists had, to achieve a certain kind of freedom of expression and action. In
other terms, I will analyse the various tricks used by women in Shakespeares
comedies to break free from their restricted lives in order to move to freer positions in
society.
Finally, I also want to discuss if Elizabethan society really gave women the
opportunity to achieve a certain kind of freedom. In this context I want to illustrate
whether Shakespeare depicted his female characters in a realistic way as far as their
roles in Elizabethan society are concerned or whether the playwright used his
comedies to express a utopian concept of female dreams about gaining more power
and freedom.

Methods
My travail de candidature will be a detailed analysis of the main female
characters from a selection of Shakespeares comedies. This analysis will consist of
my personal interpretation of Shakespeares representation of women combined with
the opinion of critics I consulted as secondary reading.
My thesis will be subdivided into the following parts:
- some general information about the Elizabethan womens position in their
society
- the difficult and apparently hopeless situations of the female protagonists at
the beginning of the plays
- the womens plans of action to break free from their restrictive positions (This
chapter will concentrate on the womens wit and intellectual potency, the
importance of disguise as well as their friendships with other women.)

Goals
The main aim of my thesis consists in illustrating that Shakespeares female
protagonists were not helpless victims but that they were powerful characters, which
had several means to fight against the restrictions imposed on them by their
patriarchal society.
Finally, the analysis of Shakespeares comedies should also illustrate the playwrights
attitude to women. Thus, this analysis should eventually indicate if Shakespeare
depicted Elizabethan society and above all its women in a traditional way for the
Early Modern period or if he rather succeeded in representing his female counterparts
in an innovative and rather revolutionary manner, for an Elizabethan man.

Table of Contents
Summary .............................................................................................................................. 4
Objectives ......................................................................................................................................................... 4
Methods............................................................................................................................................................. 4
Goals.................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Table of Contents............................................................................................................... 5
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 7
1.1 Motivation and Method .................................................................................................................. 7
1.2 General Historical Information about Elizabethan Women .........................................19
2 Section One: The Womens Difficult Situations in Shakespeares
Comedies ............................................................................................................................29
2.1 Arranged marriages.......................................................................................................................29
2.2 Comic Heroines Who Cant Be with the Men They Love................................................40
2.3 Female Characters Who Do not Return Mens Love ........................................................50
2.4 Female Characters Who Get Publically Humiliated .........................................................54
2.5 Female Characters Who Have to Act Against Their Beliefs ..........................................67
3 Section Two: The Female Characters Plans of Action .................................71
3.1 Female Characters Who Are Supported with Their Plans of Action.........................72
3.2 Plans of Action to Help Another Woman ..............................................................................77
3.3 Plans for Self-Help ..........................................................................................................................82
3.4 Plans of Action for Fun .................................................................................................................85
3.5 Female Friendship as a Tool to Gain more Freedom.......................................................94
3.6 Disguise as a Tool to Gain More Freedom ......................................................................... 101
3.7 Womens Wit as a Tool to Gain More Freedom...............................................................116
4 Section Three: The Endings................................................................................ 125
4.1 Partially Successful Endings.................................................................................................... 125
4.2 Successful Endings .......................................................................................................................131
5 Conclusion................................................................................................................ 143
Bibliography................................................................................................................... 149
Plays...............................................................................................................................................................149
Works Cited ................................................................................................................................................ 149
Further Bibliography..............................................................................................................................150
Internet Sites.............................................................................................................................................. 150

1 Introduction

1.1 Motivation and Method

In her book entitled Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History Laurel
Thatcher Ulrich describes an episode from Virginia Woolfs biography. In this
episode Virginia Woolf went to the British Museum to find documentation on the
reasons for womens poverty. However, her quest was not very successful as she
found too many experts, too many opinions, and too little real information.1 Thus,
she decided to limit her research to a particular time in history, namely the
Elizabethan Time, about which she wanted to find practical information about women.
She was particularly interested in the way Elizabethan women were educated;
whether they were taught to write; whether they had sitting rooms to themselves; how
many women had children before they were twenty-one.2 In this context Virginia
Woolf consulted a book written by Professor George Trevelyan, which was
considered to be a highly acclaimed history of England at the time. However, this
book contained only a few grim sentences about Elizabethan women as for example
that wife-beating was a recognized right, and that daughters who resisted their
parents choice of a husband were locked up, beaten and flung about the room.3
At first sight, one might draw the conclusion that the majority of Elizabethan
women had to suffer in their patriarchal society. However, as Virginia Woolfs quest
shows that precise examples of womens lives in Elizabethan times are rare, it proves

1

Thatcher Ulrich Laurel, Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History, New York: Vintage Books,
2007, p.74
2
Thatcher p.74
3
Thatcher p.74

interesting to find additional sources about Elizabethan wives. One method to gain
more insight into womens lives in Elizabethan society consists in analysing female
characters from Elizabethan plays in order to illustrate how male Elizabethan
playwrights chose to represent their female counterparts. This analysis might
eventually indicate if female characters were represented as powerful or rather as
oppressed beings, which might also suggest to modern readers how Early Modern
men perceived their female counterparts in general. That is why I decided to write a
travail de candidature about a selection of Shakespeares comedies and their female
protagonists in order to analyse the way Shakespeare perceived and represented
women. As a matter of fact, one may wonder why I have chosen one of the most
debated, if not the most debated English playwright of all times in order to discuss the
role of women in the Elizabethan time period. Of course Shakespeares works have
been analysed a great number of times, but personally I believe that his plays always
invite for further interesting analyses, which might make the readers aware of new
interesting aspects of Shakespeares work and time. This is particularly the case if you
think of the representation of powerful women, who could be categorised as cultural
others in Shakespeares society. Indeed, a lot of comments have been written on
Shakespeares representation of women in his plays but nevertheless I believe that I
will be able to add some interesting new insights about the way Shakespeare managed
to represent women as strong, active and positive characters, a notion which was
revolutionary for the Elizabethan time.
Research on Shakespeare proves that a lot of literary critics cherish this
Elizabethan playwright because he succeeded in introducing his audience to powerful
representations of suppressed characters and especially of suppressed women. A
reader of Shakespeares comedies also realises that the playwright repeatedly depicted
female characters in a far more positive way than his contemporary playwrights. Titles
from plays written at approximately the same time as Shakespeares plays convey that
Shakespeares contemporary playwrights represented their female characters rather
negatively. For instance, the title of John Fords play Tis Pity Shes a Whore indicates
that Elizabethan women were often put on a level with prostitutes, or in other terms,
they were compared to unworthy women, who did definitely not correspond to the
Renaissance ideal of a woman. This example reflects that Elizabethan playwrights did
not necessarily express respect towards women but they rather depicted them as
beings who had no say of their own because they were the victims of the plays
8

powerful male characters. This idea is also emphasised by the fact that some
Elizabethan playwrights gave their plays titles referring to typical ideas of what
women should be like or how they should be treated. Thomas Middleton, for example,
clearly makes a reference to a womans ideal behaviour in his plays title A Chaste
Maid in Cheapside as chastity was considered an absolutely desirable female
character trait. Thomas Heywoods title A Woman Killed with Kindness can in modern
times also be interpreted as an indication for the fact that Elizabethan women were
definitely suppressed and thus mens inferiors.
This dissertation, however, will above all rely on Ben Jonson and his representation of
female comic characters in order to illustrate to what extent Shakespeare can be
classified as an innovative Elizabethan playwright. The reason why more emphasis
will be put on Ben Jonson rather than on any other successful Early Modern
playwright is due to the fact that both Shakespeare and Jonson, who are often regarded
as rivals, dominated the Early Modern theatrical scene. During most of the 17th
century Jonson was an important literary figure as he largely influenced other
playwrights and poets. For instance, the Tribe of Ben, a group of young poets who
claimed to be mainly influenced by Jonson, repeatedly underlined Jonsons important
role in English literature before the English Civil War. During the Restoration period
Jonsons influence was also predominant, especially his satirical comedies as well as
his theory and practice of humour characters. These characters, who possess one
predominant trait or humour that directs their behaviour and personality, were
frequently used as an inspiration for several protagonists of Restoration comedies.
However, in the course of the 18th century the overall esteem for Jonsons work
declined because the spectators as well as other playwrights began to develop a
growing appreciation of Shakespeares work. In this context, Jonson was often
unfairly compared to Shakespeare to such a degree that in the Romantic period
Shakespeare was generally conceived as the better playwright. This growing dislike of
Jonsons plays also marks the origin of the popular belief that both playwrights never
appreciated each others work and that especially Jonson despised Shakespeares
plays and poems. As a matter of fact, Jonson criticised different absurdities in two
Shakespearean plays. First of all, he claimed that Julius Caesar contained a
nonsensical line and secondly, he was not in favour of the setting of The Winters

Tale, namely the invented seacoast of Bohemia.4 Furthermore, Jonson is often quoted
as having pointed out that Shakespeare wanted art5 which is synonymous with
Jonsons suggestion that his contemporary playwrights works lacked art. This
criticism is based on the fact that Jonson, unlike Shakespeare, was a fervent follower
of the traditional theories of literature. Jonsons aim consisted in writing comedies that
revived the classical premises of Elizabethan dramatic theory. In other terms, he
intended to rigorously respect the classical unities apparent in Plautus and Terence,
the authors from whom the majority of English comedies derived in the Early Modern
Period. This adherence to classical unities becomes obvious in Jonsons respect for the
unities of action, place as well as time. Consequently, his plays are characterised by a
single action without any subplots. Usually this plot is set on a single day, a
characteristic which is made apparent by the fact that the stage represents the same
place during the entire play. Finally, Jonsons respect of the unity of time is reflected
by his choice to represent plays whose actions take no longer than 24 hours.
Despite Jonsons respect for the classical literary rules and the rumours referring to his
lack of esteem for his fellow playwright, Jonsons poem entitled To the Memory of My
Beloved, the Author, Mr William Shakespeare: And What He Hath Left Us
emphasises that Jonson did not totally dislike Shakespeare. Indeed, this poem as well
as Jonsons epitaph for Shakespeare, which says: He was not of an age, but for all
time.6 are largely responsible for the growing appreciation of a mans work who,
despite small Latine, and lesse Greeke, had a natural genius7. Jonsons poem also
exemplifies the main contrast which can be detected between both Early Modern
playwrights. Jonson excelled as the disciplined classicist, whereas Shakespeare, a kind
of natural genius, did not follow the rules of classical literary writing but he merely
respected his audiences expectations. Consequently, although Shakespeare was most
likely too evasive and not traditional enough in Jonsons eyes, the latter definitely
expressed respect for Shakespeares talent and thus the rumours about an open war
between both playwrights can definitely be seen as a myth.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/02/13/bookend/bookend.html [Date of access: 12-04-2012]

http://www.britannica.com/shakespeare/article-232306 [Date of access: 12-04-2012]
6
http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/players/player30.html [Date of access: 12-04-2012]
7
Ibid
5

10

Nevertheless, the audiences addressed by both playwrights represented a first

important difference. Jonson, who was famous for his court masques, had a very good
link to King James and his court where he was particularly acknowledged when he
wrote two of his most popular comedies, Volpone (1606) and Epicoene (1609). For
Shakespeare, who ran his own company, writing new plays was synonymous with
running risks. Whereas Jonson, the established court writer, had to entertain a noble
audience, Shakespeare had to write for an audience that consisted of people from
various social backgrounds, and whose expectations and understandings of good
entertainment differed widely. Only a variety of jokes and topics criticising different
levels of Elizabethan society eventually allowed Shakespeare to attract audiences as
well as to run his own company successfully. In this context one could easily be
misled into assuming that Shakespeare was more popular than Jonson in the Early
Modern period as a larger part of the Elizabethan society could identify with the
Shakespearean comic characters. However, until the middle of the 18th century,
Jonson was more popular than Shakespeare, which was mainly due to the fact that
Jonson dedicated himself more to traditions and traditional writings than his fellow
playwright. At first sight, one could assume that Jonson also followed the
traditionalist stream by including misogynist ideas in his comedies. In Bartholomew
Fair, for instance, Win Littlewit and her mother are enlisted as prostitutes by a pimp
called Whit. Similarly, the comedy entitled Epicoene has repeatedly been interpreted
as a prime instance of Jonsonian anti-feminism. Sean McEvoy in his work entitled
Ben Jonson Renaissance Dramatist quotes Mary Beth Rose who stated that in all of
Jacobean drama, no misogyny is so detailed and unmitigated, so utterly triumphant, as
Ben Jonsons is in Epicoene (Rose 1988: 57).8
However, while analysing Jonsons works, one must always be aware of the fact that
Jonson wrote satirical comedies. The main aim of satires consists in entertaining the
spectators by making them laugh at other peoples misbehaviour. This way the
viewers feel superior to the foolish characters witnessed on stage and their laughter
reflects their derision towards the low human beings represented in the comedies.
Comparing satirical comedy to romantic comedy, the latter being a genre in which
Shakespeare excelled, one realises that one of the main differences between these two
genres refers to the way the viewers experience the characters on stage. As previously

8

Mc Evoy Sean, Ben Jonson Renaissance Dramatist, Edinburgh University Press, 2008, p.85

11

pointed out, the audience of satires feels superior to the characters and thus the
viewers laugh about them. However, in romantic comedies the spectators are given
the opportunity to sympathise with the characters who are represented as likeable
beings. The audience is allowed to identify with the people represented in the play,
and consequently the spectators laugh together with the characters. However, in his
comedies, Jonson, the satirist, never shows much pity for the characters who deviate
from the natural norms. They are vexed unscrupulously by the other characters in
order to entertain the audience. Thus, Jonson depicts his characters as caricatures
which have nothing in common with likeable human beings. This method creates a
distance between the spectators and the people represented on stage because they
cannot identify themselves with the characters, a fact which eventually leads the
viewers to laughing about their inferiors. In this context Jonson cannot be regarded as
a misogynist because in his comedies he does not only criticise women but he depicts
both men and women as foolish beings who have to bear the consequences of their
unreasonable behaviour. Jonsons lack of misogyny is also apparent in his openmindedness reflected by his alternative representation of both men and women as
sinners. This idea can be witnessed in Jonsons comedy Epicoene, in which Daw and
Truewits description of women seems rather negative at first sight. Truewit, for
instance, compares women to artificial works of art:
Truewit:

[] It is for us to see their

perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their
eyebrows, their nails?9 (I.1, l.112-114)

This quotation illustrates that women are no natural beings but they are so interested
in being attractive that they are ready to change their natural looks. In this context
readers could assume that the male characters in Jonsons play criticise their female
counterparts for their shallowness. However, the playwright emphasises his belief that
both his female and male characters are foolish beings by letting Truewit express his
esteem for women who are interested in their looks:
Truewit:

[] I love a good dressing

before any beauty o the world. Oh, a woman is then like a
delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it: she may vary
every hour, take often counsel of her glass and choose the
best. If she have good ears, shoe em; good hair, lay it out;
good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it
often; practise any art to mend breath; cleanse teeth, repair

Jonson Ben, Epicoene or The Silent Woman, London: New Mermaids A&C Publishers, 1979

12

eyebrows, paint, and profess it. (I.1 l.99-106)

The fact that Jonsons male characters approve of womens shallowness and even
encourage them to become unnatural underlines the playwrights criticism of both
sexes.
Furthermore, it must not be forgotten that Truewits use of misogynist clichs is a part
of his well-elaborated plan, which consists in playing a trick on Morose. Indeed, by
depicting women as unnatural and above all extremely talkative beings, Moroses
wish for a quiet wife gradually grows:
CLERIMONT:

[] He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman, be she of any form
or any quality, so she be able to bear children. Her silence
is dowry enough, he says. (I.2 l.22-25)

Clerimonts description of Moroses perfect wife points out that the latter is neither
interested in any outward looks nor in the dowry his future spouse could provide him
with. The only aspect that is of any significance to Morose is his wifes ability to
remain silent as this allows him to be superior to her.
A modern reader could easily be misled into assuming that Morose is a typical
Elizabethan misogynist whose desire to be married to a silent wife had a long and
even respectable ancestry in Elizabethan times, as the following extract from Volpone
indicates:
VOLPONE:

The poet
As old in time as Plato, and as knowing,
Says that your highest female grace is silence. (III.4 l.88-90)10

Besides Platos positive attitude to the virtue achieved by female silence, Roger
Holdsworth draws attention to the idea that female silence equalling virtue is also
deeply ingrained in Christian tradition. To prove this point, Holdsworth quotes from
the Geneva Bible, the edition that Jonson would have been familiar with in 1609:
[The sign of a good wife] is her speech, or rather her silence: for the ornament of a woman is
silence. . . As the Eccho answereth but one for many which are spoken to her; so a maydes
answere should be in a word, for she which is full of talke, is not likelie to prove a quyet wife.
The eye and the speech are the mindes Glasses. (introduction to Epicoene, p.xxxiv)

It is important to point out that Jonson does not use these popular beliefs in Epicoene
to express his misogynist attitude but rather in order to reflect how foolish a man can
be. Typically of a satire, Morose will suffer from his decision to marry a silent woman
in the course of the play as Epicoene eventually turns out to be the complete opposite

10

Jonson Ben, Volpone, New York: Dover Publications, 1994

13

of a virtuous, quiet wife. Similarly, Morose is publically humiliated at the end of the
play when Epicoenes true identity is revealed. As a matter of fact, when it turns out
that Morose was married to a young man in disguise, the audience shares Truewits
malicious joy about Morose having become the victim of Truewits plan. Finally, the
audience feels superior to one of the main male characters of Jonsons comedy, which
becomes obvious due to the spectators laughter about the protagonists misfortune.
Consequently, Jonson cannot be considered a pure misogynist but rather as an
intelligent playwright who uses popular prejudices to entertain his audience by letting
them witness foolish characters receiving their well-deserved punishments.
Eventually, Shakespeare and Jonson differ in their methods of entertaining their
audiences. Whereas Jonson entertains his spectators by making them feel superior to
the characters on stage, Shakespeare allows his viewers to identify with his likeable
and lifelike protagonists.
In this context one may inevitably wonder why Shakespeare, unlike his fellow
playwrights, chose to represent his female characters in a far more appealing way.
One possible explanation for this feature could be offered by the following quotation:
Shakespeare was born at the height of the English Renaissance when the English were
stimulated by identifying themselves as a Protestant nation, and when the intellectual and
artistic prestige of the English court was unmatched. The Protestant ideology inaugurated new
attitudes to women and coalesced with the practical concern of Humanists like More and
Erasmus to reform womens education. Aristocratic women round the court certainly evinced
constant proof of Mores contention that women were the intellectual equals of men. Henry
VIIIs queens, in particular Catherine of Aragon and later Catherine Parr, were notable for
their own scholarship, for their generosity in endowing scholars, and for their education of the
young women around them, among them Princess Elizabeth. The remarkable women of
Elizabeths court Lady Anne Bacon, the Countess of Pembroke, Lady Anne Clifford stood
in a line which stretched from Lady Margaret Beaufort to Margaret Roper and Elizabeth
Cooke. Aristocratic women in England in the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth
enjoyed an emancipation comparable to that of aristocrats like Vittoria Colonna in
Renaissance Italy. For them the battle for recognised equality with men had been fought and
won.11

The previous quotation clearly indicates that Shakespeare wrote his plays at a time
when a lot of changes took place in as far as the education of women and the position
of women in society were concerned. However, the quotation also states that this
change mainly affected aristocratic women. Being aware of the fact that Shakespeare
was not aristocratic, one may wonder where his interest for representing interesting

11 Dusinberre Juliet, Shakespeare and the Nature of Women, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003,
pp.1-2

14

female characters originated. Phyllis Rachkin offers a possible answer to this question
in her work Shakespeare and Women:
Because most of the women in Shakespeares family outlived their brothers and husbands, the
family in which he grew up was actually predominantly female. In addition to numerous
sisters and female cousins, Shakespeare had eight aunts, including one who outlived her
husband by forty-one years.
Sixteenth-century legal records show that the women in Shakespeares family controlled
considerable property both in land and in money. They also bequeathed property, served as
executors of wills, and engaged in litigation designed to defend and further their financial
interests. Shakespeares mother, for instance, although she had nine older sisters and two older
brothers, inherited the only freehold property her father bequeathed and served as one of his
two executors.12

Spending his childhood and adolescence in the company of several women who were
exercising a certain power, might have inspired this Elizabethan playwright to write
comedies that can be considered an exploration of the feminine world13.
Furthermore, Lisa Jardine mentions that Shakespeares women characters offer
insights into womens perceptions of themselves in a patriarchal world14. As a
consequence, the question about how these women perceived themselves inevitably
arises. One also wonders how the readers, Elizabethan and/or modern, perceive
women through their representations in Shakespeares plays.
At this point it should be stressed that the focus of this travail de candidature
lies on the female protagonists of Shakespeares comedies only. I decided not to
concentrate on the female characters of Shakespeares tragedies for two different
reasons. First of all, Shakespeares comic women prove to be far more interesting in
as far as their active behaviour as well as their strength is concerned. Indeed, these
characteristics turn them into more positive and likeable beings than Shakespeares
tragic women. For instance, Lady Macbeth, who on the one hand can definitely be
regarded as a powerful woman, is, on the other hand, a very dark, negative and
scheming character.
The second reason why I decided to only concentrate on Shakespearean comedies is
the positive attitude the playwright had towards comedies. In order to clarify this idea
some explanations on comic theory will be provided. First of all, Early Modern

12

Rachkin Phyllis, Shakespeare and Women, Oxford University Press, 2005, p.33
Stevie, The Feminine Reclaimed The Idea of Woman in Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton,
Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1986, p.110
14
Jardine Lisa, Still Harping on Daughters, Women and Drama in the Age of Shakespeare, New York:
Columbia University Press, 1989, p.2
13 Davies

15

English playwrights were familiar with Aristotles as well as Sir Philip Sidneys
theory of what a comedy is. Norbert Platz makes use of Aristotles key statement
about comedy in his lecture on Introducing Shakespeares Comedies from 15th July
2004:
[] comedy is an imitation of those who are worse than ourselves, yet not in every sort of evil
but only in that baseness of which the ridiculous is a species. For the laughable is a sort of
fault and deformity that is painless and not deadly, as indeed the comic mask is an ugly sort of
thing and deformed and yet does not suggest pain.15

In other words, Aristotle explains that the characters represented in comedies are
inferior to the audience as they behave in a way the spectators would never do. This
feeling of superiority also explains why the audience has to laugh about the comic
characters on stage. However, Platz points out that:
In the Renaissance period, Aristotles definition of the comic characters as those who are
worse than ourselves was replaced in social terms. Renaissance theorists agreed that only
high-born people could be protagonists in a tragedy. On the other hand, characters of middle
or low condition, ordinary people if you like, were to make their appearance in comedy.16

One aspect of comedy in the Renaissance was to represent everyday life with its
ordinary people. In this context one obvious goal of comedies consisted in criticising
everyday life and society in general with the audience feeling superior to the
characters represented on stage. In the same time period, however, Sir Philip Sidney
also introduced the idea of comedies which do not only generate laughter but also
delight:
[] we take delight in things that agree with our nature. [] delight is based on the idea that
things may sometimes turn out better than one might have expected. So Sidney goes on to
specify the causes that might provide us with feelings of delight and joy: We are ravished
with delight to see a fair woman. We delight in good chances we delight to hear the
happiness of our friends, our country. What happens on the emotional plane could be
described as follows: We are pleased to realize that things go well in life; we are prepared to
identify with the people who are more beautiful and luckier than us; it gives us some sense of
gratification if a string of events is crowned by a happy ending.17

This form of comedy does not only introduce the audience to what goes wrong in
society but it rather provides the spectators with pleasure and encouragement, which is
mainly provided by the positive characters represented on stage. Shakespeares
comedies definitely also belong to this life-enhancement category as his comic
characters, and especially his female protagonists, are depicted in a very positive light.

15

Nicoll Allardyce, The Theatre and Dramatic Theory, London: 1965, pp.117, 119-122 in Norbert
Platzs lecture Introducing Shakespeares Comedies from 15th July 2004
16
Platz, 15th July 2004
17
Platz 15th July 2004

16

Furthermore, they manage to create a bond with the audience allowing the spectators
to identify themselves with those likeable characters. This is also the major reason
why I decided to focus on Shakespeares female characters as they indicate the
playwrights successful creation of very powerful as well as very positive and
appealing characters.
It should be pointed out that certain comedies are not included in this thesis as
especially the resolutions of these plays were not necessarily caused by a female
characters extraordinary power or wit. This is for example the case of A Midsummer
Nights Dream in which magic resolves the plays plot and in which none of the
human characters actually has an influence on the comedys plot and outcome.
Similarly, the problem plays have been left out from the analysis in this thesis because
several critics do not agree on whether plays like Pericles, Cymbeline or Two Noble
Kinsmen can be classified as comedies. This lack of agreement is mainly due to the
fact that the previously mentioned plays do not share any elements which can be
considered typical for Elizabethan comedies or tragedies. For instance, these plays
neither end with a comedys typical wedding nor with a tragedys characteristic death.
Some of these problem plays are also regularly referred to as dark comedies. Indeed,
although the end might be rather positive for the protagonists, the more complicated
issues debated during the play are not resolved entirely. The only problem play
discussed in this thesis is A Winters Tale because of its extremely interesting female
protagonist. Hermione, who equals Hero, the heroine from Much Ado About Nothing,
in her extraordinary patience. This character trait proved to be especially interesting to
analyse in order to compare two women who are not depicted as active agents in their
fight for more personal freedom. As the topic of this thesis, however, refers to
Shakespeares comic women, all the other plays debated in the different sections of
the dissertation belong to the plays which are usually referred to as Shakespeares
festive comedies.
The most relevant comedies for this thesis are plays which introduce their
audience to very interesting female characters for whom the spectators feel sympathy.
Thus, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It, Twelfth
Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about
Nothing and Alls Well that Ends Well are the most essential plays for this travail de
candidature. However, the dissertation will also include an analysis of two female
Shakespearean characters who differ from those powerful and active protagonists of

17

the previously mentioned comedies, namely Hermione from A Winters Tale and Hero
from Much Ado about Nothing. Although these two characters are not as active as the
shrew Kate, Portia or Anne Page, they nevertheless manage to achieve their initial
aims thanks to their extraordinary patience and tolerance. As a consequence, one
focus of this thesis will concentrate on the contrast between these two different types
of women depicted in Shakespeares comedies.
It should also be pointed out that comedies analysed in this dissertation were written
at different stages in Shakespeares life. However, the plays will not be mentioned in a
chronological order because the main focus of the thesis does not consist in proving
that Shakespeares view of women altered in the course of the years. The main aim of
the dissertation actually consists in describing and analysing the different female
protagonists difficult situations as well as their respective ways of dealing with their
problems. That is also why the plays are regrouped according to similar problems as
well as to the protagonists similar ways of action.
The analysis of the female characters of Shakespearean comedies should
answer the following question: Are the female characters in Shakespeares comedies
hopeless victims or powerful winners?
In order to find an answer to that question the following thesis will be subdivided into
an introduction, three different main sections and a conclusion. The main aim of the
introduction consists in giving general information about women in the 16th and 17th
centuries. The first section focuses on the difficult situations women are confronted
with in the different comedies. In several chapters different groups of problematic
situations, which the female characters have to face, are discussed. Further emphasis
is on the way the heroines conceive themselves in these situations as well as the way a
modern reader might interpret the heroines roles in these problematic circumstances.
The second section focuses on the characters different plans of action which might
allow them to finally escape their difficult situations. This section is also subdivided
into different chapters in which the various motives behind the womens plans are
analysed. An additional focus is on the topics of disguise and wit, which can also be
regarded as means for the female characters to act against their oppression. In this
context it must be pointed out, however, that the problematic of boy actors performing
the female roles is not an issue. This topic is definitely a very interesting feature of
Shakespeares comedies but as the subject would be too vast for this thesis and as it
would go farther than the dissertations actual scope, its preferable not to debate it.
18

To sum up, the second section mainly focuses on the strength the female characters
make proof of in their respective fights out of their hopeless situations. Yet it should
be emphasised that in this context the expression strength does not refer to physical
power but rather to the womens psychological strength, which is illustrated by their
extraordinary wit, intelligence and patience.
The last section focuses on the endings of the different comedies. The main question
of this section is whether the female protagonists managed to reach their goals or, in
other words, if they managed to break free from their difficult situations in the course
of the comedies in order to end up as powerful winners. This eventually leads to the
overall conclusion of the thesis, in which its most essential question of whether
Shakespeares female characters are hopeless victims or powerful winners, is
answered.
In these different sections references to various sources of secondary reading
are made. The most relevant and helpful authors as far as the background information
concerning Elizabethan women and Elizabethan society in general proved to be Lisa
Jardine, Richard Houlbrooke, Dympna Callaghan and Kate Chedgzoy. These authors
were also helpful to analyse different characters as well as different relevant scenes
and/or topics occurring in the various comedies. As a matter of fact, quotations from
secondary reading will regularly be used in order to illustrate different critics views
on the most important aspects of this thesis. However, the method of using references
will not only consist in commenting on the critics ideas but their views will also be
used to sustain my personal view on various aspects in order to introduce some
innovative ideas that go further than the critics ideas.

1.2 General Historical Information about Elizabethan

Women
Before concentrating on Shakespeares female protagonists, some general
information about the typical view of women in Early Modern England18 should be
provided. As a matter of fact, over the decades the view of women living in the 16th

18

Given the fact that the chronological limits of the Early Modern Period are open to debate (usually
they are settled from approximately 1500 to 1800), it should be pointed out that the time span mainly
focused on in this thesis starts at the end of the 16th century and continues to the first half of the 17th
century.

19

and early 17th century has been described in a rather dark light as Elizabethan England
has mainly been regarded as a patriarchal society. Typically of patriarchies
Elizabethan women were considered inferior to their male counterparts, which
resulted in providing them with fewer rights in society.
As a consequence, one might also assume that in such a patriarchal society
especially fathers regarded their daughters as inferior and thus also as less useful than
their sons and that furthermore society in general regarded women as less valuable
than men. However, this was not necessarily the case because under certain
circumstances daughters were actually considered precious gifts from God. That is
why Queen Elizabeth wrote letters of condolence on the death of daughters as well as
on the death of sons of noble families19. Although daughters were treated with the
same form of respect as sons at the moment of their death, there were nevertheless
two domains in everyday Elizabethan life in which daughters were oppressed by their
fathers as well as by society in general, namely education and marriage.
It is a common belief that in the 21st century Elizabethan girls and women were
definitely inferior to their male counterparts as they did not receive any proper
education. Indeed, most of the girls were denied access to school and especially to
university. Nonetheless, Renaissance is often referred to as the golden age of
emancipation20 (Jardine, p.51) as far as female education is concerned because
despite limitations, Elizabethan women had more liberty than their ancestors. This is
due to the fact that during the Renaissance people believed that men and women could
do anything and be anything they wanted to be as their capacity of knowledge was
without any limits21. Of course one must remember that this belief was mainly popular
among noblemen and that explains why aristocratic women were given an academic
education. Queen Elizabeth also encouraged the education of women as she did not
want noble women to look dim in contrast to herself who was very intelligent and
highly educated as the following words expressed by the educationalist Roger Ascham
describe:
She had me as her tutor in Greek and Latin for two years . . . . She talks French and Italian as
well as English: she has often talked to me readily and well in Latin, and moderately so in
Greek. When she writes Greek and Latin, nothing is more beautiful than her hand-writing. She
is as much delighted with music as she is skilful in the art. . . . She reads with me almost all
Cicero, and great parts of Titus Livius; for she drew all her knowledge of Latin from those two

19

http://www.elizabethi.org/us/women/ [Date of access: 12-04-2012]

Jardine p.51
21
Jardine p.51
20

20

authors. She used to give the morning of the day to the Greek Testament, and afterwards read
select orations of Isocrates and the tragedies of Sophocles. For I thought that from those
sources she might gain purity of style, and her mind derive instruction that would be of value
to her to meet every contingency of life. To these I added Saint Cyprian and Melanchthons
common places, &c., as best suited, after the Holy Scriptures to teach her the foundations of
religion, together with elegant language and sound doctrine. Whatever she reads she at once
perceives any word that has a doubtful or curious meaning. She cannot endure those foolish
imitators of Erasmus who have tied up the Latin tongue in those wretched fetters of proverbs.
She likes a style that grows out of the subject; chaste because it is suitable, and beautiful
because it is clear. She very much admires modest metaphors, and comparisons of contraries
well put together and contrasting felicitously with one another.22 (Letter from Ascham to
Sturm, reproduced in Baldwin, William Shaksperes Small Latine, 259)

Although Ascham points out that Queen Elisabeth received a classical education,
other values were also considered to be very important in her training as purity,
chasteness, modesty (albeit of language) are qualities which the young queen has
learnt to recognise as a result of her humanistic training23. A considerable number
of aristocratic women were also introduced to and made familiar with these
qualities in their education as it was believed that women had to be closely
controlled by men. The period was fraught with anxiety about rebellious women
and particularly their rebellion through language (Newman 1991: 40) and so
characteristics like obedience, docility and chastity were considered primordial
aspects of a womans education24. This aspect gets obvious in Peter Stallybrasss
essay Patriarchal Territories: The Body Enclosed when he claims that womens
bodies were assumed to be naturally grotesque and that women were therefore
subjected to constant surveillance . . . because, as Bakhtin says of the grotesque
body, it is unfinished, outgrows itself, transgresses its own limits25.
Thus, the most important aspect of a womans education was its chastening
and silencing characteristics. In the introduction to Rhetoric, Women and Politics
in Early Modern England, the reader also learns about these aspects of a womans
education:
The same pragmatic philosophy that promoted rhetorical training for men as a necessary
prerequisite for a life of public service also served to justify womens debarment from such
training on the grounds that they could not hold civic office. Instead of aiming to produce
articulate female subjects, womens education was, notoriously, geared to the shaping and
management of womens moral character and conduct and to preparing them for their
domestic roles as wives, mothers and household managers. In practice, this meant that women
were usually expected to confine themselves to acquiring housewifery skills and a level of

22
23

Jardine p.53

Jardine p.53
Rachkin Phyllis, Misogyny is Everywhere in Callaghan Dympna (ed.), A Feminist Companion to
Shakespeare, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001, p.43
25
Rachkin p.43
24

21

literacy sufficient to enable them to discharge their domestic duties and to read the religious
and homiletic texts that would fortify them against the perceived weaknesses of their sex.26

The previous quotation illustrates that the majority of women received an

education that prepared them for their future lives as mothers and housewives by
mainly teaching them housewifery skills as they would not be able to practise
another profession. However, the acquisition of these skills did not only allow
them to excel as housewives later on but it also allowed men to keep women
chaste as [e]ducation, like spinning and needlepoint, would keep women from the
idleness which might lead them astray (lead them to challenge their customary
roles, for instance); it would make them pious and suitable companions for their
husbands, and mothers for their children.27 Although Elizabethan women were
finally allowed to receive an education, they were still the victims of their
patriarchal society as men only taught them items which kept them in their inferior
position and which did not turn them into powerful human beings, who could
deprive men of their power in society.
Another domain of a typical Elizabethan womans life on which patriarchy had
a large influence was marriage. During the Renaissance arranged marriages were
the norm in England. Marriageable young women did not choose their husbands
by themselves but usually marriages were arranged by the families of the bride
and the bridegroom. Elizabethan England being a patriarchal society the fathers
traditionally elected their future sons-in-law following their economic interests.
An Elizabethan father was not primarily interested in his daughters happiness but
he saw her marriage as an opportunity to improve his own financial status.
However, Phyllis Rachkin in her essay Misogyny is Everywhere makes her readers
aware that against modern belief, Elizabethan women also played an important
role as far as arranging marriages was concerned:
As Margaret Ezell has demonstrated, early modern women played central roles in arranging
marriages, not only their own, but those of their daughters, nieces, and granddaughters as well.
Far more fathers than mothers had died by the time their children reached marriageable age
(Ezell 1987: 18). Moreover, even when both parents were alive, great numbers of women lived
away from their parents homes, often supporting themselves independently and negotiating
their own marriages. Vivien Brodsky Elliotts study of single women in the London marriage
market during the years 1598 to 1619 shows that women who had migrated from the country
to work in London tended to marry later than London-born women and to marry men who

Richards Jennifer & Thorne Alison (eds.), Rhetoric, Women and Politics in Early Modern England,
London and New York: Routledge, 2007, pp.3-4
27
Jardine p.54
26

22

were closer to their own age, statistics which, Elliott concludes, suggest a greater freedom of
choice of spouse and a more active role for women in the courtship and marriage process
(Elliott 1982: 89): without the control or influence of their parents in the marriage process for
them was one in which they had an active role in initiating their own relationships, in finding
suitable partners, and in conducting courtships (Elliott 1982: 97). Among the upper levels of
society where there was more property involved and parents were more likely to take an active
role in arranging their childrens marriages, Ezells study of womens correspondence with
other women reveals that mothers, grandmothers, and aunts played central roles in negotiating
marriages for their children (Ezell 1987: 20-34).28

On the one hand there were definitely some women who played an active role in
planning their marriages and who were obviously free to choose their own
partners. On the other hand one could also claim that women in general were
rather active in arranging marriages for their female relatives. Although these
women exercised a certain power and authority, one must not forget that the
young women who were supposed to get married still suffered from the fact that
they were not allowed to choose their husbands. As a consequence, even if a
certain number of women obviously enjoyed some freedom and power as far as
arranging marriages was concerned, younger women belonging to the upper
classes of Elizabethan society were still oppressed and powerless.
Thus, one may wonder if those women, who were free to choose their own
husbands, continued enjoying certain liberties once they were married, or whether
the husbands were superior to their wives and ruled over them as it is commonly
assumed of a patriarchal society.
As a matter of fact, a man was regarded as the head of a marriage and he had the
legal right to chastise his wife. However, it is important to understand what this
headship actually referred to. Husbands were by no means able to command
their wives to do anything they pleased. They were actually expected to take care
of their spouses by making sure they had everything they needed and most
importantly husbands had to love their wives and be good fathers to their children.
If a husband ever felt the need to chastise his wife, he was legally not allowed to
inflict bodily harm on her because if he abused his wife, he could be prosecuted or
prevented from living with her.29 All in all, marriage in Elizabethan times does not
appear to have been as grim as it is sometimes believed nowadays. Marriage was
actually seen as the desirable state especially for women because Elizabethan

28
29

Rachkin p.50
http://www.elizabethi.org/us/women/ [Date of access: 12-04-2012]

23

society did not offer many different lifestyle opportunities for unmarried women.
Particularly after the Reformation when spinsters could no longer join a nunnery
as the Reformists had closed all the convents, poor single women could only start
working in the domestic service, which was usually not very rewarding. Whereas
wealthier unmarried women, like for example heiresses of properties, could
become mistresses of estates and gain some power in their respective communities
thanks to this task, being single was still not a desirable status. Most Elizabethans
even looked upon spinsters with suspicion. This attitude linked to the common
belief that single women of a certain age did not lead a morally correct life might
explain why more single than married women were accused of being witches by
their neighbours30.
There was another advantage for women to be married as the wifes economic
importance assured her a status which, in practical terms, was close of being that
of an equal partner with her husband.31 This becomes especially evident if one
compares a married Elizabethan woman to a single woman who had to struggle
financially as her only means to make money was working in the domestic
service, a job which was definitely not well-paid. Although one may claim that life
as a married woman was an acceptable condition in Elizabethan times, the
numerous examples of different domains of a typical Early Modern womans life
previously mentioned have illustrated, however, that Elizabethan society was a
patriarchy and that women consequently suffered from their inferior position to
men as they did not have the same freedom and opportunities as their male
counterparts.
In this context one may wonder why Elizabethans readily accepted the idea of
women being clearly inferior to men. Shakespeares contemporaries view of
women was actually largely influenced by the Bible, more precisely by the story
of Adam and Eve. Indeed, [t]he concept of equality between the sexes would
have seemed very foreign to most in Shakespeares day. Adam was created first,
and Eve from his body; she was to be subordinate to him, to obey him and to
accept her lesser status.32 The vernacular treatise Dives and Pauper, which might

30

http://www.elizabethi.org/us/women/ [Date of access: 12-04-2012]

http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/economicimportance.html [Date of access:
12-04-2012]
32
http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/ideas/sexes.html [Date of access: 12-04-2012]
31

24

be considered to be the most comprehensive and popular late medieval English

exposition of the Ten Commandments33, points out that the fact that Eve had been
made of Adams rib to be his companion, [] not of his foot to be his thrall, nor
his head to be his master34, encouraged a lot of writers to suggest that women,
who were assumed to be intellectually inferior to men, had to be dominated by
their male counterparts and could by no means be considered mens equals.
The fact that Eve committed the original sin also led Elizabethans into believing
that women had to be treated as mens inferiors as they were evil and not to be
trusted:
This clearly states that womens subjection to men was a punishment for Eves part in the Fall;
according to biblical commentators, Eve had revealed a character that was liable to be
deceived by Satan as well as being capable of deceiving Adam. Gods punishment and Eves
character combine to suggest the way in which future generations of women were to be
perceived and were to behave. From the story in Genesis, then, Knox claimed that women
were unable to govern because of Eves part in the Fall and Gods punishment. All women,
regarded as daughters of Eve, were to be treated according to this punishment. But this biblical
precept provided the basis from which womens actual identity was constructed. Women,
Knox claims, are by their very nature weak and feeble and consequently unable to assume an
authoritative role: Nature I say, doth paynt [women] further to be weake, fraile, impacient,
feble and foolishe: and experience hath declared them to be unconstant, variable, cruell and
lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment. And these notable faultes have men in all ages
espied in that kinde, for the whiche not onlie have they removed women from rule and
authoritie, but also some have thought that men subject to the counsel or empire of their wyues
were unworthy of all publike office.35

In the previous quotation Knox draws the conclusion that women cant be trusted with
authoritative positions in society as they are all successors of Eve, which leads them
into tricking men and making mistakes with terrible consequences for their entire
society. In this context it is not surprising that well-behaved women seldom made
history as the title of Thatcher Ulrichs book indicates and that Elizabethan womens
names only survived in records about girls who gave birth out of wedlock [or who]
testified against powerful men.36
As a consequence of the lack of precise documentary about women from the past, one
may easily draw the conclusion that Elizabethan women, who lived in a patriarchy
ascribing an evil character to women, led very quiet lives, and due to this male

33

Houlbrooke Ralph A., The English Family 1450-1700, Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 1999, p.68
Houlbrooke p.98
35 Chedgzoy Kate, Hansen Melanie & Trill Suzanne (eds.), Voicing Women Gender and Sexuality in
Early Modern Writing, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998, p.19
36
Thatcher p.76
34

25

oppression they might even be considered hopeless victims of their patriarchal

society.
Why then was this society willing to accept a woman as their queen whereas
women were generally not allowed to exercise any power or authority? The essay The
Absolute Queene, Companionate Wives, and the Social Order by Mihoko Suzuki
offers a fitting explanation for this dilemma:
In Chapter 16, the Division of the Parts and Persons of the Common Wealth, Smith states at
the outset that he reject[s] women, as those whom nature hath made to keepe home and to
nourish their familie and children, and not to meddle in matters abroade, not to beare office in
a citie or a common wealth no more than children and infantes (Smith 1982: 64). The only
exception is an absolute Queene, and absolute Dutches or Countesse, such as Elizabeth, who
inherits the title in her own right. Such women and children have the same authoritie . . . as
they should have had if they had bin men of full age, but only because they never lacke the
counsel of such grave and discreete men as be able to supplie all other defaultes (Smith 1982:
65). Even Elisabeths ambassador felt that she could only rule because of support offered by
male counselors.37

Although Smith, Queen Elisabeths contemporary, first states that the Queen is an
exception from other women in as far as she can exercise power and authority over
her people, he nevertheless also emphasises the fact that the Queens ambassador felt
it necessary for her to be supported and given advice by men. Even powerful and
influential Elizabethan women apparently only gained their power thanks to their male
contemporaries.
Some Elizabethan men, however, went further by pointing out that women with power
were unnatural because they were not naturally disposed to have power and authority.
This view was also adopted by John Knox, the famous Scottish reformer (c. 15141572), as the following statement about female monarchy, quoted in the book entitled
Voicing Women, illustrates:
As a result, Knoxs argument about female monarchy creates two major effects: a woman
promoted to sit in the seat of God and be a monarch is a monster in nature. And
furthermore, Knox asserts, monstrouse is the body of that commonwelth, where a woman
beareth empire. The monstrous body of the woman and the monstrous body of the nation are
articulated by Knox through the metaphor of the body itself. For the woman to assume
authority, she was adopting the function of the superior head. Consequently, it is the reversal
in the relationship between men and women, when women assume power, that creates a
monstrous body. To quote Knox, For who wolde not judge that bodie to be a monstre, where
there was no head eminent above the rest, but that they eyes were in the handes, the tonge and
mouthe beneath the belie and the eares in the feate (26v). And the arch monarchical monster
reigning over a monstrous and disfigured nation was, for Knox, none other than Queen Mary
herself.38

37
38

Suzuki Mihoko, Gender, Class and the Ideology of Comic Form in Callaghan p.122
Chedgzoy, Hansen & Trill Suzanne (eds.) p.21

26

Knox definitely considered it unnatural and thus unacceptable for a nation to be ruled
by a woman. He even believed that acting against nature could result in destroying a
nation ruled by a queen.
Like Knox, the majority of Elizabethan men may have perceived powerful
women as unnatural and evil. As previously mentioned, it is also a fact that a
considerable number of women were excluded from the universities and the learned
professions, married women lost the right to their own property unless special
provisions were made to preserve it, and wife-beating was regarded as a perfectly
accepted means of resolving domestic reputes. On the other hand, aristocratic women
managed great estates and wielded economic power comparable to that of the head of
a large modern corporation. Even women further down the social scale also
occasionally exercised a certain power as a considerable number of them were active
in trades that are now regarded as traditionally male.39
Consequently, it becomes obvious once more that this patriarchal society also had
powerful women among their citizens. In her essay entitled Misogyny is Everywhere40
Phyllis Rachkin mentions that the Tudor queens Mary and Elizabeth were definitely
not the only politically powerful women of that period in time. Moreover, Patricia
Crawford, who analysed voting registers, points out that women had been regularly
voting in parliamentary elections during the seventeenth century into the 1650s at
least (Orgel 1996: 74)41. Rachkin also illustrates that women did not only possess
economic power by inheriting from their male relatives but some women also gained
economic power by virtue of their own gainful employment42.
To sum up, this general information about the historical background has illustrated
that Elizabethan women did not experience as much freedom in their patriarchy as
women experience in the western world nowadays. Nevertheless, Elizabethan women
also enjoyed some liberties in certain domains. On the following pages of this thesis
the focus moves on to Shakespeares comedies in order to analyse the playwrights
attitude towards women.

Rachkin Phyllis, Shakespeare and Women, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, p.7
Rachkin Phyllis, Misogyny is Everywhere pp.50-51
41
Orgel Stephen, Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeares England, Cambridge
University Press, 1996
42
Rachkin p.51
39
40

27

28

2 Section One: The Womens Difficult

Situations in Shakespeares Comedies

2.1 Arranged marriages

As mentioned in the introduction, this first chapter focuses on the different
difficult situations the female protagonists of Shakespeares comedies are trapped in at
the beginning of the respective plays. In the introduction it was also mentioned that
arranged marriages were a problem Elizabethan women had to deal with and indeed,
this topic also represents a difficulty for the female characters in a considerable
number of Shakespeares comedies. It is not surprising that an Early Modern
playwright incorporated the topic of arranged marriages in his plays as they were the
norm in Elizabethan society because the majority of Shakespeares contemporaries
believed that love may occur in marriage but generally it was considered foolish to
marry for love43. As a consequence, the several father/child relationships in
Shakespeares comedies, like for example the relationships between Baptista and
Bianca, Baptista and Katherine or between Vincentio and Lucentio in The Taming of
the Shrew, emphasise the fact that parents were concerned about finding suitable
matches for their children. Furthermore, the recurrence of this subject in
Shakespeares comedies illustrates that the playwright had the intention to point out
the broader social impact marriage had on the respective families. In Elizabethan
times marriage did not only concern the bride and groom but it also largely affected
their parents and occasionally even further relatives. One may wonder why parents

43

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29

felt so concerned about their offsprings marriages and Ralph A. Houlbrooke offers a
fitting explanation:
The writers of domestic counsel assumed that conscientious parents would take the initiative
in choosing partners because they knew better than their children what was good for them.
Daniel Rogers (1642) criticised those who were content to leave the choice to their children:
parents should not only harken to, but runne and ride to seeke out good matches for their
children, if any occasion be offered. . . .44

All in all, the previous quotation casts a rather positive light on the business of
arranging marriages as apparently parents were worried about their children and
wanted them to get married to the best possible partners.
However, another reason why families decided to arrange marriages for their
children was that a future union also had a great financial impact on both families.
Getting married was synonymous with being financially on the safe side as a
marriage contract included provision both for the brides dowry and for a jointure, or
settlement, in cash and property by the husbands family that guaranteed her welfare
should her husband die first.45 Evidently marriage was an important business for the
involved families as the grooms family received the brides dowry and as they also
set up a contract for the brides financial welfare if she ever became a widow.
Lawrence Stone in The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 also
comments on the advantages of arranged marriages for Early Modern families:
Among the landed classes in pre-Reformation England, nuptiality the proportion of
surviving children who married was determined by family strategy. The three objectives of
family planning were the continuity of the male line, the preservation intact of the inherited
property, and the acquisition through marriage of further property or useful political
alliances.46

In this context it becomes obvious why the majority of Elizabethan people considered
it foolish to marry for love. A childs marriage could have such important financial
and political advantages for the parents that the latter preferred choosing the suitable
partners for their offspring.
So far it has been established that arranging marriages could be a rewarding
business for parents of daughters and sons alike. However, it is commonly assumed
that young women were more often the victims of their parents wedding negotiations.
Lisa Jardine states that publicly the absolute rights of parents over their daughters

44
45

Houlbrooke p.69

46

Stone Lawrence, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800, London: Penguin Books,

http://elizabethan.org/compendium/10.html [Date of access: 12-04-2012]

1990, p.37

30

was a commonplace.47 She continues by pointing out that there are numerous social
documents dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, which prove how powerless
Elizabethan girls used to be in their marriage arrangements:
one of the Earl of Surreys sisters was reduced to petitioning Henry VIII when her husband
persisted in treating her lands as if they were his own, whilst neglecting her for her wet-nurse;
dowager widows were remarried in games of pure power-politics; wives were set aside in
favour of more advantageous ones.48

Consequently, women were turned into mere objects that could easily be exchanged in
this business of arranging marriages. Just like any purchasable item, different women
were regarded as possessing different values:
Any marriageable well-born woman possessed a number of attributes which gave her a
value: her dowry prospects, her title, her looks, her ability to produce heirs. As the sixteenth
century wore on, these attributes, and the parental bargainings that went on concerning
suitable matches, came to be seen increasingly as worryingly akin to cash transactions. In
Italian discussions of the high cash-value of dowries, the question is earnestly raised as to
whether parents are in fact marketing their daughters virginity to the highest bidder by
providing a cash equivalent for the desired match.49

Marriageable women were definitely oppressed by their parents as they were literally
turned into exchangeable and purchasable objects and so they had absolutely no
power to take their own decisions concerning their private lives. Nevertheless, women
always tried to escape this restriction and Lawrence Stone provides an example which
illustrates what happened to a girl who tried to oppose herself against her familys
choice of husband:
In the mid-fifteenth century, Elizabeth, daughter of Agnes Paston, obstinately insisted on
choosing her own husband. To bring her to heel, her mother put her in virtual solitary
confinement, forbidden to speak either to visitors or to male servants. In addition, she hath
since Easter the most part been beaten once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice on a
day, and her head broken in two or three places.50

Being aware of the fact that daughters who opposed their parents wishes were treated
in such a harsh way, it is not surprising that most daughters were ready to accept their
parents choices. Due to this lack of resistance or rebellion, the arranging of marriages
gradually became a tradition:
In the sixteenth century, violence was less necessary since the duty of filial obedience had
been more successfully internalized. On the rare occasions when children threatened to marry
to suit themselves, parents were quick to emphasize the traditional need to consider the
interests of the lineage and the obligation to obey ones parents.51

47

Jardine p.89
Jardine p.89
49
Jardine p.163
50
Stone p.130
51
Stone p.130
48

31

Arranging marriages had not only turned into a tradition in the Early Modern period
but the Church also advised children to follow their parents advice unless their
counsel was contrary to their duty to God.52 As the Elizabethan society was a rather
religious society, there are numerous examples of obeying daughters who readily
accepted partners introduced to them by their parents. Houlbrooke describes such an
example in his book The English Family 1450-1700:
In 1665, for instance, after Lord Sandwich had agreed upon the marriage of his daughter
Jemimah to Sir George Carterets eldest son, Samuel Pepys was entrusted with the delicate
task of giving the shy and callow Carteret a crash course in the arts of courtship. After the
young couples third encounter, Pepys asked Jemimah how she liked young Carteret.
Bashfully she answered that she could readily obey what her father and mother had done,
which, as Pepys commented, was all she could say or he expect.53

The example of Jemimah indicates that young women definitely had no choice of their
own as far as their future husbands were concerned. The previous example also proves
that the majority of marriageable girls obviously did not even think of rejecting their
parents choice but instead they thought it useless to even try to break free from their
powerless situation. This, however, was not always the case as the following example
of another marriageable Elizabethan girl illustrates:
[] Mary Boyle, courted by the son of Lord Claneboye in about 1639, showed more spirit
than Jemimah Montagu. My father and his had, some years before, concluded a match
between us, if we liked when we saw one another, and that I was of years of consent; and now
he being returned out of France, was by his fathers command to come to my fathers. . . . Her
father permitted the young man to court her, with a command to Mary to receive him as one
designed to be her husband. But this particular project fell through, even though her father
pressed her to it, because of Marys extraordinary aversion to her intended mate.54

Apparently it was also possible for girls living in the 16th and 17th centuries to
successfully break free from their powerless situation as an exchangeable item of the
marriage business. However, one has to remember that Mary Boyle was an
extraordinary case as it is emphasised by Houlbrooke and so the majority of
marriageable women in the Early Modern period still had no say in the arranging of
their own marriages.
Having discussed the business of arranging marriages in Elizabethan society in
general leads to the question of how Shakespeare dealt with this problematic in his

52

Houlbrooke p.68
Houlbrooke p.70
54
Houlbrooke p.70
53

32

comedies. In order to answer this question the following part of this section
concentrates on how The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice and The
Merry Wives of Windsor deal with the topic of marriage arrangements.
As briefly mentioned previously The Taming of the Shrew mainly focuses on the
economic aspects of marriage and above all it illustrates how economic considerations
have an effect on who eventually marries who. In other terms, this comedy rather
analyses the romantic relationships from a social perspective instead of the real
passions of love. Another interesting aspect explored by this play refers to the effects
a courtship has on the lovers as well as on the people surrounding them, like for
instance the lovers parents but also their friends and servants. As a matter of fact,
whereas the husband and wife are only represented conducting the marriage
relationship after the actual wedding, the courtship relationship as well as the
arranging of the marriage take place between the brides father and the groom. This
aspect becomes especially evident in the conversation between Baptista and Petruccio
in II.1:
PETRUCCIO
BAPTISTA
PETRUCCIO

What dowry shall I have with her to wife?

After my death the one half of my lands,
And in possession twenty thousand crowns.
And for that dowry Ill assure her of
Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,
In all my lands and leases whatsoever.55 (II.1 l.120-125)

This extract proves that women had no right to contribute to the arranging of their
marriages as Kate is not even present in this crucial scene. Instead her father and her
suitor take important decisions about her future without her and they discuss her as if
she was a purchasable good. One also realises that arranging a marriage in
Elizabethan times can be compared to a transaction involving the transfer of money.
Petruccio is obviously only interested in his financial gain and that is why he asks
Baptista for his wifes dowry as it will eventually become his possession. However,
the financial aspect is apparently also important to Baptista as Petruccio immediately
assures him that his daughter will inherit his possessions and thus she will be
financially save if she ever becomes a widow. As it was common for Early Modern
women to be excluded from marriage arrangements, one may wonder how they felt

55

Shakespeare William, The Taming of the Shrew, in Wells Stanley & Taylor Gary (eds.), The Oxford
Shakespeare The Complete Works, Oxford University Press, 1998. All subsequent references are to this
edition.

33

The Taming of the

Shrew

about these negotiations concerning their future. Shakespeare depicted Kates reaction
to this marriage arrangement after the conversation between Petruccio and Baptista:
KATHERINE:

Call you me a daughter? Now I promise you

You have showed a tender fatherly regard,
To wish me wed to one half-lunatic,
A madcap ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out. (II.1 l.280-284)

These lines represent a rather unexpected and strong reaction for an Elizabethan
woman. Although women were taught to be virtuous and not to contradict their
fathers, Kate actually tries to rebel against her father by blaming him for marrying her
off to a complete madman who seems irresponsible, worthless and who thinks that he
will always get his way by swearing. Her rebellious character even leads her to openly
express her disapproval of this marriage to her future husband by replying to
Petruccio, after he explained to her that their wedding day will be the following
Sunday, Ill see thee hanged on Sunday first. (II.1 l.295)
Although Shakespeare depicted Kate as a very strong-willed woman, who at first sight
has nothing in common with the typical well-behaved and well-educated Elizabethan
woman, we must not forget that Kate already has had a reputation as an untameable
shrew since the beginning of the play:
GREMIO:

I say a devil. Thinkst thou, Hortensio, though her father be very rich, any
man is so very a fool to be married to hell? (I.1 l.122-124)

Although it is interesting to see that a woman with a personality like Kates had the
courage to rebel against her father and her suitor by using harsh words, one cannot
simply draw the conclusion that every Elizabethan woman possessed such a strong
will and thus tried to confront her male counterparts with her opinion. As a matter of
fact, by introducing Kates sister Bianca, Shakespeare also describes a character who
is the opposite of the shrew. Biancas situation at the beginning of the play can be
considered to be at least as difficult as Kates situation because their father has taken a
decision concerning her future husband, too:
BAPTISTA:

[] and he of both
That can assure my daughter greatest dower
Shall have my Biancas love. (II.1 l.338-340)

Baptista also intends to arrange Biancas future marriage and he is only willing to
accept the man who offers the biggest amount of money for her. In this context the
reader gets the impression that Baptista also treats his second daughter like a
purchasable item with no will of its own. As it has been established by now, this
34

situation was definitely not easy for the young woman in question but it was not
surprising either as it was the norm for Early modern fathers to arrange their
daughters marriages. Biancas situation, however, has become even more desperate
as her father has taken an additional decision which has an impact on both his
daughters future lives:
BAPTISTA

For how I firmly am resolved you know:

That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter
Before I have a husband for the elder. (I.1 l.49-52)

In other words, the obeying daughter is not allowed to get married until her shrewish
sister has found a husband. At this point of the play it seems rather impossible that
Bianca will ever get married because so far her sister has only been described as
absolutely undesirable. How then does Bianca, who has always been Baptistas
favourite daughter, react to this rather unexpected and harsh decision? At the very
beginning of the second act Biancas attitude towards this seemingly hopeless
situation is depicted:
BIANCA

Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself

To make a bondmaid and a slave of me.
That I disdain, but for these other goods,
Unbind my hands, Ill pull them off myself,
Yea, all my raiment to my petticoat,
Or what you will command me will I do,
So well I know my duty to my elders. (II.1 l.1-7)

These lines reflect Biancas obeying character as she remembers how she is expected
to behave towards the older members of her family. By pointing out that she will do
anything her sister commands her to do, Bianca has obviously accepted her inferior
position in her family. This fact leads to the conclusion that she will also respect her
fathers decision concerning her marriage. Unlike her sister, she will not contradict
her father or try to rebel against him. Thus, Shakespeare represents Bianca as the ideal
obeying Elizabethan woman, who is ready to accept difficult situations and who, by
no means, tries to break free from this difficult position because this would result in
going against her fathers decisions.
The main female character of The Merchant of Venice is an orphan and so one
could assume that she is free to make her own decisions as she can no longer be
oppressed by her father. However, one soon realises that the consequences of
patriarchy even oppressed unmarried women who had lost their fathers. As a matter of

35

The Merchant of
Venice

fact, Portias father still has authority over her even after his death because he
announced in his will that his daughter could not choose her own husband:
PORTIA:

O me,
the word choose! I may neither choose who I would
nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living
daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.56 (I.2 l.21-26)

In these lines Portia indicates that she is still obedient to her father although this
implicates that she does not have any control over her own life even after her fathers
death as it was his final wish that every suitor has to choose the correct casket among
three in order to be allowed to marry his daughter. As a consequence, at the beginning
of the play the reader does not believe that Portia, who expresses her helplessness in
the previous lines, has got any potential for initiative. Her behaviour is rather typical
of a frustrated prisoner chained down by her fathers wishes expressed in his will.
However, Dympna Callaghan in her book entitled A Feminist Companion to
Shakespeare quotes Lucking who offers an explanation why Portias father included
this unusual casket game in his will:
What is at stake here is not Portias happiness alone [] but the future welfare of Belmont
itself. For the man who marries Portia will also become master of her realm, and the late Lord
of Belmont has therefore contrived the casket test as a procedure for selecting his own
successor. The apparently arbitrarily and tyrannical decree [of the test of the caskets], so
different from the ostensibly rational and liberal statutes of Venice, in fact reveals itself to be a
manifestation not only of parental solicitude, but also of a deeply responsible concern to
ensure that political power will remain at the service of what is truly significant in life.
(Lucking 1989: 359)57

In fact, Portias father did not only include the casket test in his will to oppress his
daughter but he also thought of his property Belmont believing that this casket test
was the only way to find a suitable successor who was skilled enough to govern his
lands. Nevertheless, this initiative also reflects a fathers lack of trust in his daughter
as he did not seem to believe that Portia would be able to make a sensible decision
concerning her future husband on her own. Thus, this will allows Portias father to
oppress his daughter in order to save his property whereas it also expresses his doubts
about his daughters sensibility. A possible explanation for the fathers decision to set
up this will is that in Elizabethan society women were considered irrational human
beings who were not able to take reasonable decisions on their own as they could
easily be misguided by their feelings. At first, Portia also seems to correspond to this

56
57

Shakespeare William, The Merchant of Venice

Singh Jyotsna G., Gendered Gifts in Shakespeares Belmont in Callaghan p.150

36

traditional view of the typical woman because she definitely suffers from the fact that
her father still controls her and forces her to follow his commands even after his
death. However, in the course of the play the reader gradually realises that
[A]lthough her father did not trust her to choose a husband for herself this is a patriarchal
society yet, as her shrewd comments on her suitors reveal, few women ever had a keener
insight into mens characters than she. Nevertheless, she does not really rebel against her
fathers will, and when she learns it has driven away six unwelcome suitors, she is amazed and
delighted at the old mans foresight. Her filial piety meant more to the Elizabethans than to us
in their view, a patriarchal society was natural but her quick feelings, her sense of
responsibility, her wit and keen perception of the ridiculous belong to every age and make her
one of the most magnetic heroines.58

This extract from Myricks introduction to The Merchant of Venice indicates that
although Portia seems to be oppressed by her father, she nevertheless has more
freedom than other women. She has the opportunity to look for some characteristics in
her suitors that allow her to get a better picture of her future husband, a privilege other
Elizabethan women did not have. One example of Portias description of one of her
suitors reflects that she was able to get a good first impression of her respective
wooers:
PORTIA:

God made him, and therefore let him pass for a

man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but
he why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitans,
a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine.
He is every man in no man. If a throstle sing, he falls
Straight a-capring. He will fence with his own shadow.
If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands.
If he would despise me, I would forgive him, for if he
love me to madness, I shall never requite him. (I.3 l.54-62)

Portias words emphasise her ability to evaluate her suitors characters as well as the
fact that she is not blinded by their appearance. In this context one realises that her
fathers fear of her inability to make a wise decision concerning her husband and his
successor was unfounded.
Furthermore, the scenes describing her encounters with the suitors illustrate
that although Portia seems to be in a helpless situation, she is not willing to let fate
decide the outcome of the casket test. Indeed, she is powerful enough to manipulate
her suitors so that they eventually choose the wrong casket:
PORTIA:

Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a

deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for
if the devil be within and that temptation without, I
know he will choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere
I will be married to a sponge. (I.2 l.86-90)

58

Myrick Kenneth, Introduction to The Merchant of Venice, New York: Signet Classics, 1998, p.lxviii

37

Although Portia, who at first sight seems to be a powerless girl caught in a helpless
situation, is in fact rather powerful and manages to mislead the suitors into choosing
the wrong casket, a ruse which consequently prevents her from getting married to a
man she does not like.
The Merry Wives
of Windsor

Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor also seems to be trapped in a

hopeless situation at the beginning of the play as not only her father but both her
parents want to arrange her wedding with the man of their respective choice. Although
Anne is in love with Fenton, neither of her parents is ready to accept him as their sonin-law.
At first, one might easily assume that Master Pages refusal of Fenton as Annes
bridegroom is actually quite positive as he wants to protect his daughter from a
disappointment because he believes that Fenton is only interested in her money.
Fenton even admits that he was first attracted by her money but he also states that he
has meanwhile really fallen in love with Anne:
FENTON:

Albeit I will confess thy fathers wealth

Was the first motive that I wooed thee, Anne,
Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
Than stamps in gold or sums in seald bags;
And tis the very riches of thyself
That now I aim at.59 (III.4 l.13-18)

Despite Fentons honesty, which is obvious in the previous lines, both Master Page
and his wife do not accept him. However, they have chosen suitors for their daughter
who do not seem to be the best choice either. Master Pages candidate Slender is
depicted as a real fool who only speaks nonsense whereas Mistress Pages favourite
future son-in-law Caius barely speaks English. At some point in the play Mistress
Page gives the impression that she is willing to reconsider her choice as she tells
Fenton that she will listen to her daughter:
MISTRESS PAGE:

My daughter will I question how she loves you,

And as I find her, so I am affected. (III.4 l.90-91)

Yet, it soon becomes evident that Mistress Page will definitely not be on her
daughters side. She absolutely wants her to marry Caius and thus she even goes
against her husbands decision, unlike a typical obeying Elizabethan wife. As a

59

Shakespeare William, The Merry Wives of Windsor

38

consequence, it becomes obvious that both Mister and Mistress Page fight against
each other on their daughters expense as they completely disrespect her feelings.
Given the fact that Anne is not interested in any of her parents suitors, one might
wonder how she reacts to her parents intention to marry her to their respective
suitors. As a matter of fact, she implores her mother, after having met Slender for the
first time in III,5, not to marry her to yon fool (l.82). Apart from this imploration,
Anne does not really actively try to convince her parents of not marrying her to any of
their suitors but of consenting to her wedding with Fenton. Nonetheless, one must not
forget that once more this comedy is set in a patriarchal society, which provides the
parents and especially the fathers with the right to take decisions for their daughters.
The surprising aspect in this comedy is that Mister and Mistress Page do not agree
with their daughters future husband and so they both secretly scheme a plan to marry
their daughter to their respective candidate. In this context Mistress Page proves to be
a rather strong character, who does not accept her husbands choice as she actively
plans her daughters wedding on her own. Anne, who at first seems to be the helpless
loser in this situation, also shows a certain strength and alertness because she finally
manages to outsmart both her parents by eloping with Fenton in order to marry him
secretly. Thus, Annes active role in her own wedding arrangements indicates that she
is actually smarter than both her parents. The latter were so concentrated on winning
their contest that they completely ignored their daughters well-being and the fact
that neither of their suitors would have made her happy (cf. pp.80-82). At the end of
the play, however, Anne manages to make her parents realise their greatest problem,
namely their inability to listen to her and to care about her well-being. Moreover,
Annes decision to act against her parents wishes and to take over an active role in
her own wedding arrangements could be interpreted as an invitation for other women
to act and to consequently try to break free if they are ever caught in hopeless
situations. In this context Shakespeare can be interpreted as a revolutionary Early
Modern playwright because Anne represented a new role model. Although obedience
used to be considered the ideal female behaviour, disobedience in Annes case might
be justifiable because thanks to it, Anne succeeded in breaking free from her arranged
marriage, which most likely would have confined her to a restricted and unhappy life.
As a consequence, Shakespeare managed to establish the idea that women might be
able to achieve happier lives if they are willing to rebel and to be disobedient.

39

To conclude, one can point out that Shakespeare illustrates different attitudes
to arranged marriages in his comedies. First of all, he represents obeying characters
like Bianca, who can also be regarded as the ideal Elizabethan daughter or woman in
general. Secondly, he introduces Portia, who at first sight also seems to be obeying,
but who can eventually be considered a representative of the less obeying and thus
more powerful Elizabethan women. As a matter of fact, the majority of Shakespeares
comic heroines who have to deal with arranged marriages are rather powerful and
rebellious and so they dont correspond to the ideal marriageable woman of the
Elizabethan period. Indeed, they are stronger than other Elizabethan girls in their fight
against their parents who are arranging their marriages.

2.2 Comic Heroines Who Cant Be with the Men They Love
As previously mentioned, the Elizabethans commonly considered it foolish to
marry for love. One explanation for this attitude is that Christianity generally regarded
love as dangerous for girls. Juan Vives pointed this idea out in The Instruction of a
Christian Woman, which can be regarded as a typical humanist handbook on this
topic:
A young girl is never to play with boys; as she grows up, she is to leave her home as seldom as
possible and, certainly, never to a man. She is never to fall in love. In attacking the love that is
associated with Venus and Cupid, Vives quotes approvingly St. Jeromes argument that love
is a forgettynge of reason, and the nexte thynge vnto fransye, a foule vyce. The only
proper objects for a maidens love are God, Christ, Mary, the Church, and her parents. All
marriages are to be arranged by the parents. Vives lectures girls who insist on marrying only a
man they already love.60

Nevertheless, love is a natural phenomenon and thus also Shakespeares heroines fall
in love. Shakespeares female protagonists first have to deal with an apparently
hopeless situation before the plays end with at least one wedding, which is a typical
feature of Early Modern comedies. The heroines, who the main focus lies on in this
part of the thesis, are Anne Page from The Merry Wives of Windsor, Jessica from The
Merchant of Venice, Helen from Alls Well that Ends Well and Olivia from Twelfth
Night. They have in common that their helpless situation at the beginning of the

60

Friedman Simon, Some Shakespearian Characterizations of Women and Their Traditions (A

Dissertation presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in candidacy for the
degree of doctor of philosophy), 1973, pp.5-6

40

different comedies is due to the fact that they have fallen in love with men with who
they cant be for different reasons.
Anne Page in the play The Merry Wives of Windsor has to face several
problems caused by her love for Fenton, who her parents do not accept. At the
beginning of III.4 Fenton informs Anne that he has talked to her father about their
possible marriage, but to no avail:
FENTON:
ANNE
FENTON

I see I cannot get thy fathers love;

Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
Alas, how then?
Why, thou must be thyself.
He doth object I am too great of birth,
And that, my state being galled with my expense,
I seek to heal it only by his wealth.
Besides these, other bars he lays before me
My riots past, my wild societies;
And tells me tis a thing impossible
I should love thee but as property. (III.4 l.1-10)

The previous lines illustrate that Fenton has traditionally asked Annes father for her
hand in marriage. Unsurprisingly for the Elizabethan time, Fentons financial interests
were a topic between him and Master Ford, who blamed Fenton of only being
interested in Annes wealth. This belief gets even strengthened by Annes line Maybe
he tells you true. (III.4, l.11) in which she apparently also expresses some doubts
about Fentons genuine feelings for her. However, Fenton manages to convince Anne
as well as the audience that his intentions to marry her are not based on any financial
prospects but on real love (cf. quotation on p.38). Fentons words strike the reader
with their honesty as he admits that he was indeed first interested in Annes wealth but
he gradually fell in love with Master Pages daughter. Fentons honest words also
remove Annes remaining doubts and that is why she encourages her suitor to
continue seeking her fathers consent for their marriage.
Nevertheless, the question is inevitably raised if Anne genuinely loves Fenton
or whether she is just willing to marry him because he seems to be a better choice than
the suitors her parents have selected for her. Has Annes decision to marry Fenton
really been taken out of love for him or out of rebellion against her parents, who are
not willing to respect their daughters wishes? As a matter of fact, Anne is depicted as
a rather strong young woman who wants to make her own decisions. She is also able
to elaborate a precise plan which will eventually allow her to outsmart her parents in

41

The Merry Wives

of Windsor

order to get her own will. This strong character trait is referred to in Fentons words to
the host of the Garter in IV.6:
FENTON:

HOST:
FENTON:

[] fair Anne Page,

Who mutually hath answered my affection,
So far forth as herself might be her chooser,
Even to my wish. (IV.6 l.9.12)
[]
Her father hath commanded her to slip
Away with Slender, and with him at Eton
Immediately to marry. She hath consented.
Now, sir, her mother, ever strong against that match
And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed
That he shall likewise shuffle her away,
While other sports are tasking of their minds,
And at the deanry, where a priest attends,
Straight marry her. To this her mothers plot
She, seemingly obedient, likewise hath
Made promise to the Doctor. (IV.6 l.24-34)
[]
Which means she to deceive, father or mother?
Both, my good Host, to go along with me. (IV.6 l.45-46)

In the previous extract Fenton points out that Anne returns his affections and he also
mentions that she should be able to choose her future husband. Anne has not only
decided to get married to Fenton by eloping with him and thus to act against her
parents will, but she was the one who set up the rather complicated plan which will
eventually allow her to marry Fenton. By promising both her parents to accept their
respective candidate, she pretends to be the obeying and even nave daughter.
However, she finally uses her parents plans to break free from her apparently helpless
situation. Although the audience does not know for sure if she genuinely loves Fenton,
she has found a way to deal with her difficult situation. Even if she is not really in
love with him, the most important aspect for her is to be able to choose a partner
instead of being treated like an exchangeable object by her parents. So Annes main
aim in this comedy is to teach her parents a lesson as they did not respect the fact that
she has a will of her own. At the end of the comedy Fenton explains Annes motives
for her courageous decision to outsmart her parents:
FENTON:

42

You would have married her, most shamefully,

Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
Thoffence is holy that she hath committed,
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours
Which forced marriage would have brought upon her. (V.5 l.213-22)

It is interesting to notice that Fenton explains Annes reasons for her plan to escape
with him whereas Anne is only apologising to her parents in this scene. She has
obviously not entirely broken free from her oppression yet. Although she managed to
marry her favourite suitor, she is still worried about her parents willingness to forgive
her. Consequently, she can still be considered the typical Elizabethan daughter who
wants to be fully accepted by her parents. The fact that Fenton takes over the task to
explain Annes plan might also be interpreted as his intention to oppress her by not
allowing her to talk publically. In this context one may easily assume that by marrying
Fenton, Anne might have been able to break free from her parents oppression but it is
likely that she will get oppressed by her husband as it was usual in the Early Modern
period.
In The Merchant of Venice Jessicas social background is a source of
numerous conflicts. At first sight, she has to reconcile her Jewish background with
Lorenzos Christianity. The only solution to this problem is Jessicas marriage to
Lorenzo and her resulting conversion to Christianity:
JESSICA:

If thou keep promise I shall end this strife,

Become a Christian and thy loving wife.61 (II.3 l.20-21)

Being aware of the fact, however, that Shylock, Jessicas father, a stubborn Jew who
is proud of his religion, would never allow his daughter to get married to a Christian
and above all not to change her religion, one might wonder how Jessica could possibly
solve this problem. In this context one should also point out that Jessica suffers from
her fathers dominance and strong personality. She actually suffers to such a degree
that she feels ashamed of being Shylocks daughter and she even describes her house
as hell (II.3 l.2). As a consequence, it is doubtful whether Jessicas love for Lorenzo is
really genuine. Does she not rather use him as a means to escape from her father and
to deeply hurt Shylock at the same time? These doubts are encouraged by Lorenzos
words in the following extract:
LORENZO:

She hath directed

How I shall take her from her fathers house,
What gold and jewels she is furnished with,
What pages suit she hath in readiness. (II.6 l.29-32)

61

Shakespeare William, The Merchant of Venice

43

The Merchant of
Venice

In the previous lines Lorenzo describes the precautions that his beloved has taken so
that they can elope. Jessica has obviously planned her elopement in a reasonable way
as she even decided which jewellery she would take along. One could assume that
Jessica longs to get away from her oppressive father and that explains why she has
meticulously planned her escape. As a consequence, her plan to run away does not
seem to be based on real love for Lorenzo and it would not be surprising if Jessica just
used Lorenzo as a means to escape the hopeless situation she is confronted with in her
fathers house. Furthermore, her willingness to convert to Christianity must not
necessarily be due to her love for her future husband, but given the fact that Christians
had a better reputation than Jews, giving up her religion in order to become a
Christian would consequently improve her position in society. However, in II,6
Jessica apparently also expresses genuine feelings for her future husband:
JESSICA:
LORENZO:
JESSICA:

Lorenzo, certain, and my love indeed,

For who love I so much? And now who knows
But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours?
Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art.
Here, catch this casket. It is worth the pains.
I am glad tis night, you do not look on me,
For I am much, ashamed of my exchange;
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit;
For if they could, Cupid himself would blush
To see me thus transformed to a boy. (II.6 l.29-39)

The previous lines, which are spoken at the moment when Jessica and Lorenzo are
about to elope, depict Jessica as a young girl who feels ashamed to show herself in a
pages clothes to her future husband. In this context one realises that Jessica must
have some feelings for Lorenzo for otherwise she would not experience this shame
when she is facing a man while wearing a mans disguise herself. Jessicas love for
Lorenzo indeed offers her a means to escape her oppressive father and to start a new
life in freedom. Consequently, Jessica manages to break free from the helpless
situation she had to deal with at home. However, the question still arises if running
away with a man will eventually provide her with real freedom, especially as the play
was written for a patriarchal society in which women depended on men and seldom
experienced total freedom.
Alls Well that
Ends Well

In Alls Well that Ends Well Shakespeare introduces another female character
who has genuinely fallen in love with a man. In the following lines Helen describes
her love for Bertram to his mother, the Countess:
44

HELEN:

I love your son.

My friends were poor but honest; sos my love.
Be not offended, for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me. I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit,
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him,
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet in this captious and intenable sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love
And lack not to lose still.62 [] (II.1 l.190-200)
[] My dearest madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love
For loving where you do; but if yourself,
Whose agd honour cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever in so true a flame of liking
Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and Love, O then give pity
To her whose state is such that cannot choose
But lend and give where she is sure to lose, (II.1 l.203-211)

Helens words mirror her genuine love for Bertram but simultaneously she refers to
the actual problem why she cannot be with the man she loves, namely their different
social backgrounds. Bertram is the Count of Roussillon and Helen is the orphan of a
poor physician. Thus, Bertram is Helens social superior, which makes a relationship
between both of them impossible. Stanley Wells, in his work Shakespeare The Poet
and His Plays, points out that Helen despairs of winning Bertrams love because of
his social position:
Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me.
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere. (I.1. 84-8)63

Being aware of the fact that Helen and Bertram are members of a society in which
social positions play a very important role, it is not surprising that Bertram refuses to
marry Helen:
BERTRAM:

[] I know her well:

She had her breeding at my fathers charge.
A poor physicians daughter, my wife? Disdain
Rather corrupt me ever. (II.3 l.114-117)

62
63

Shakespeare William, Alls Well that Ends Well

Wells Stanley, Shakespeare The Poet and His Plays, p.235

45

Nevertheless, Helen never really despairs but she proves to be rather powerful in her
fight to win over Bertrams heart. For instance, she woos Bertram by addressing the
following words to him:
HELEN:

I dare not say I take you, but I give

Me and my service ever whilst I live
Into your guiding power. (II.3 l.103-105)

First of all, these words are very surprising because they are expressed by a young
Elizabethan woman who was not expected to woo a man. As a matter of fact, in
courtship a womans role was rather passive given the fact that she was normally
wooed by the man. It is even more surprising to hear these rather courageous words
from a character like Helen, who so far in the play has presented herself as a rather
shy and humble woman:
HELEN:

I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest

That I protest I simply am a maid. (II.3 l.67-68)

Nevertheless, the love that Helen experiences for Bertram is so overwhelming that she
overcomes her shyness and humility, which allows her to turn into a very powerful
woman who is willing to actively fight for Bertrams love. She eventually has the idea
to help the King who suffers from an illness:
HELEN:

You know my father left me some prescriptions

Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading
And manifest experience had collected
For general sovereignty, and that he willed me
In heedfullst reservation to bestow them,
As notes whose faculties inclusive were
More than they were in note. Amongst the rest
To cure the desperate languishings whereof
The King is rendered lost. (I.3 l.219-228)

Stanley Wells interprets Helens decision to go to Paris to cure the king with the help
of the medical knowledge she has acquired thanks to her father as follows:
[] in following Bertram to Paris with the ostensible aim of curing the King she expresses
confidence that the knowledge she has derived from her father will be supplemented and
sanctified / By th luckiest stars in heaven (I.3.243-4), and in persuading the sceptical King
to let her practise her art upon him she stresses the notion of the human practitioner as an
agent of the divine will. She is Gods minister, and God will help the King through her.64

Stanley Wells illustrates that this woman is no longer the helpless and weak creature
the playwright introduced at the beginning of his comedy. This is a rather strong
woman who tries everything possible in order to win over the heart of the man she has

64

Wells p.236

46

fallen in love with. As a matter of fact, she does not only want to heal the King but she
knows that once she has managed to help the King, he will make sure that her dearest
wish, namely getting married to Bertram, will come true:
HELEN:

Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand

What husband in thy power I will command.
Exempted be from me the arrogance
To choose from forth the royal blood of France,
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or image of thy state;
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow. (II.1 l.193-200)

Being aware of the fact that Shakespeare repeatedly used rimes to underline the
extreme importance of a statement, one can assume that the playwright opted for a
riming scheme in the previous lines in order to emphasise Helens confidence. This
character trait is particularly mirrored by the fact that she, as a woman, feels powerful
enough to tell a King outright what she expects from him in return for her services. At
first it seems that Helens bravery and strength pay off as Bertram finally accepts her
as his wife:
BERTRAM:

KING:

BERTRAM:

[] I find that she, which late

Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now
The praised of the King; who, so ennobled,
Is as twere born so.
Take her by the hand
And tell her she is thine; to whom I promise
A counterpoise, if not to thy estate
A balance more replete.
I take her hand. (II.3 l.171-178)

At this moment of the play one could expect a happy ending as Bertram has finally
accepted to get married to Helen. However, Helen has by no means achieved her aim
because although Bertram is getting married to her, he is not willing to bed her (II.3
l.266-7, p.866). Moreover, he is going to leave her to go to the wars. Thus, one can
draw the conclusion that powerful women are not always the winners. Of course,
Helen finally got married to Bertram but he did not accept her as his wife out of love
but only as a sign of loyalty to his King. Nevertheless, Helen still makes proof of her
strength and continues fighting for him in the course of the comedy as Section Two of
this thesis will explain in more detail (cf. pp.82-85).
In Twelfth Night Olivia is affected by the loss of her brother. Valentine
comments on Olivias extraordinary grief at the beginning of the play:

47

Twelfth Night

VALENTINE:

The element itself till seven years heat

Shall not behold her face at ample view,
But like a cloistress she will veiled walk
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine all this to season
A brothers dead love, which she would keep fresh
And lasting in her sad remembrance.65 (I.1 l.25-31)

Later in the play Olivias grief for her brother entails an additional problem because
her mourning prevents her from falling in love. She explains this problem to Viola,
disguised as Cesario, in the following extract:
OLIVIA:

[] I cannot love him.

Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth,
In voices well divulged, free, learned, and valiant,
And in dimension and the shape of nature
A gracious person; but yet I cannot love him. (I.5 l.246-251)

It becomes obvious in the previous lines that Olivia has a very positive opinion of
Orsino, Cesarios lord. Nevertheless, she is incapable of falling in love with him as the
grief she feels for her brothers death makes it impossible for her to fall in love with
another man. It is very surprising though that just a few lines later Olivia obviously
falls in love with Cesario, who is actually Viola in disguise. The change in Olivias
attitude can be perceived immediately after her discussion with Cesario:
OLIVIA:

What is your parentage?

Above my fortunes, yet my state is well.
I am a gentleman. Ill be sworn thou art.
Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit
Do give thee five-fold blazon. Not too fast. Soft, soft
Unless the master were the man. How now?
Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Methinks I feel this youths perfections
With an invisible and subtle stealth
To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be. (I.5 l.279-288)

It is surprising that a woman who has just claimed that she is incapable of loving a
man as she is still mourning her brother suddenly speaks so positively about another
man. In fact, her praise of Cesarios appearance in the previous lines sounds typical
for how a woman describes her beloved. Although this change of attitude seems rather
unexpected, one might be less surprised of Olivias sudden capacity to fall in love if
one remembers Orsinos words about her at the very beginning of the play:
ORSINO:

O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame

To pay this debt of love but to a brother,

65

Shakespeare William, Twelfth Night

48

How will she love when the rich golden shaft

Hath killed the flock of all affections else
That live in her when liver, brain, and heart,
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and filled
Her sweet perfections with one self king! (I.1 l.32-38)

Orsinos words reveal that Olivia is perfectly capable of experiencing love. So far she
has only had strong feelings of love for her brother but Orsino interprets her affection
for her brother as a sign of her general ability to love someone. Thus, if she loved her
brother so dearly, she will also be able one day to truly love another man. As a matter
of fact, the love that Olivia experiences for Cesario helps her to gain more strength
and to break free from her laming grief experienced after her brothers death. In fact,
Olivias character experiences an important change in the course of the play while her
love for Cesario gradually grows. Viola alias Cesario has managed to win over
Olivias heart. Consequently, Olivias grief has been replaced by infatuation which
results in giving herself over to a certain shamelessness that is characteristic of this
comedy. In some scenes she behaves in a very forward way like for example when she
takes Cesarios hand while they are talking to each other, an action which was very
unusual for an Elizabethan noblewoman. All in all, Olivias growing love for Cesario
has a very positive influence on her as she forgets her grief and eventually breaks free
from her hopeless position. However, her love for Cesario puts her into another
difficult situation as it is not reciprocal. She can never be with him because he only
exists as the disguise that Viola has taken on. Thus, although Olivia might feel better
meanwhile, her initial problem is still not solved because she can still not be with the
man she loves even if she no longer longs for her deceased brother to come back to
her.
As a conclusion, some of Shakespeares female protagonists cannot be with
the men they have fallen in love with due to social or personal reasons. Moreover, the
previous chapter has confirmed as well that the women in Shakespeares comedies are
real fighters who do not simply accept their hopeless situations but who are mentally
strong enough to fight in order to receive love.

49

2.3 Female Characters Who Do not Return Mens Love

Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona
have to deal with a similar problem. Both protagonists have to deal with men who
have fallen in love with them but whose love they are not able to return.
The Taming of the
Shrew

Katherine, the female protagonist of Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew,

has previously been described as a misbehaved woman. Due to this characteristic the
play opens with no suitor having ever wanted to marry her albeit her wealth.
Petruccio is the first man who shows interest in getting married to Kate and his
reasons are clear from the start: he is only interested in marrying a rich woman:
PETRUCCIO:

[] if thou know
One rich enough to be Petruccios wife
As wealth is burden of my wooing dance
Be she as foul as was Florentius love,
As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates Xanthippe or a worse,
She moves me not or not removes at least
Affections edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas.
I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua. (I.2 l.65-75)

These lines clearly state that Petruccios aim is neither to fall in a love with a woman
nor to find a beautiful and docile wife but he just wants to woo and finally marry a
wealthy woman. Consequently, when he is told about Kate, the wealthy shrew, he
immediately elaborates a plan to woo her:
PETRUCCIO:

Say that she rail, why then Ill tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.
Say that she frown, Ill say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly washed with dew.
Say she be mute and will not speak a word,
Then Ill commend her volubility,
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence.
If she do bid me pack, Ill give her thanks
As though she bid me stay by her a week.
If she deny to wed, Ill crave the day
When I shall ask the banns, and when be married. (II.1 l.170-180)

Petruccios plan does not consist in being very strict to Kate in order to tame her
shrewish temper. Instead he has planned to tame her by being extremely kind to her.
Although Petruccio puts this plan into action during their first encounter, it
nonetheless becomes obvious that Kate does not like him. She immediately tells him
that, for instance, he should not call her Kate but Katherine. However, instead of
feeling discouraged, Petruccio follows his initial plan to tame her with kindness. One
50

also has to point out that Petruccio never hides that he does not accept the way Kate
behaves but that he will try to tame her in order to turn her into a typical obeying
Elizabethan wife:
PETRUCCIO:

For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,

And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates. (II.1 l.270-273)

One may assume that Kate, who has repeatedly shown her shrewish and stubborn
character, will just become even more shrewish if someone tells her that he wants to
tame her. Surprisingly enough, Kate has become far more silent after her suitor has
informed her of his intention to tame her. As a matter of fact, after this announcement
Kate only verbally attacks her father but not her suitor. When Petruccio then
announces that their wedding day will be the following Sunday, she just gives a quick
and rather weak answer:
KATHERINE:

Ill see thee hanged on Sunday first. (II.1 l.295)

Moreover, when Petruccio lies about her behaviour by telling her father that she
behaved in a very tamed way when they were alone, she actually does not contradict
him at all. Kates lack of reaction towards Petruccios positive description of her
behaviour is very unexpected because so far she used to seem proud of her reputation
as a rebellious shrew.
In this context one may wonder if Kate can be interpreted in this scene as a
victim who has already realised that it is useless to rebel because she is powerless to
fight against a wedding that has been arranged by her father and her suitor. This idea
also becomes obvious in the following words pronounced by Kate:
KATHERINE:

No shame but mine, I must forsooth be forced

To give my hand opposed against my heart
Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen,
Who wooed in haste and means to wed at leisure.
I told you, he was a frantic fool,
Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour,
And to be noted for a merry man
Hell woo a thousand, point the day of marriage,
Make friends, invite them, and proclaims the banns,
Yet never means to wed where he hath wooed.
Now must the world point at poor Katherine
And say Lo, there is mad Petruccios wife,
If it would please him come and marry her. (III.2 l.8-20)

Kates words quoted above could not only be interpreted as the reaction of a
powerless victim but they could also have a deeper meaning. She seems to be

51

concerned about what other people may think if Petruccio does not marry her. Thus,
one definitely notices an obvious change in her behaviour as well as in her words
because the shrew that was introduced to the audience at the beginning of the play was
so strong that she would never have cared about what other people might possibly
think of her. This change is illustrated once more just before she leaves the stage in
tears in III.2. This exit leaves the audience in surprise because Kate has so far been
depicted as a strong and emotionless girl. In this context one may inevitably wonder if
Kates tears are genuine or whether she just pretends to be sad, which could be
considered typical of this cunning and resourceful young girl. However, if she is
genuinely crying, her reaction can be explained in several ways. A first reason for her
tears is that she believes that Petruccio made fun of her when he arranged their
wedding and that he does not really intend to marry her. As a consequence, her crying
can be interpreted as a sign of the humiliation she feels. In this case it would be the
first time in the play that Kate behaves the way a young Elizabethan woman was
expected to behave. It is likely that she will be very disappointed if Petruccio does not
marry her because people will make even more fun of her than before when they
called her a shrew. Nevertheless, this theory remains doubtful because so far in the
play Kate has never worried about what other people think of her.
Another possible reason for her tears refers to her subconscious fear that life
with Petruccio, who will try to tame her with kindness, will be like hell for her. So far
she has enjoyed a certain freedom in her life thanks to her shrewish character, but if
Petruccio really tames her, she will have no freedom left at all as she will be forced to
obey her husband without an exception.
A final possible explanation for Kate showing emotions by bursting into tears
could be that she has actually fallen in love with Petruccio. In this context her tears
can be explained in two different ways. On the one hand, she might interpret these
feelings, which she has never experienced for a man before, as a weakness. As she
definitely does not want to appear as weak, she starts crying out of helplessness. On
the other hand, if she has really fallen in love with Petruccio, her tears might show
genuine worries about whether he will marry her or whether he just made fun of her
before. Thus, the question inevitably arises if Kate, who was introduced as a very
strong character, gradually becomes weaker and starts to correspond more and more to
the typical Elizabethan woman. The answer to this question will be discussed in more

52

detail in the section about the endings of Shakespeares different comedies (cf.
pp.129-131).
Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona has to deal with Thurio, a suitor her
father has chosen for her but whom she does not like at all:
THURIO:

Since his exile she hath despised me most,

Forsworn my company, and railed at me,
That I am desperate of obtaining her.66 (III.2 l.3-5)

The main reason why Silvia despises Thurio is that she has fallen in love with
Valentine whom her father does not accept as his future son-in-law. He expresses his
dislike of this relationship by locking his daughter in a tower at night so that she
cannot elope with her suitor:
DUKE: I nightly lodge her in an upper tower,
The key whereof myself have ever kept;
And thence she cannot be conveyed away. (III.1 l.35-37)

As if this situation was not already difficult enough for Silvia, Proteus also falls in
love with her although he is in a relationship with Julia. Silvia, however, cannot stand
this suitors interest in her:
SILVIA:

You have your wish. My will is even this,

That presently you hie you home to bed.
Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man,
Thinkst thou I am so shallow, so conceitless
To be seduced by thy flattery,
That hast deceived so many with thy vows?
Return, return, and make thy love amends.
For me by this pale queen of night I swear
I am so far from granting thy request
That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,
And by and by intend to chide myself
Even for this time I spend in talking to thee. (IV.2 l.90-101)

Silvias words in this extract indicate her strong character as she makes it absolutely
clear to Proteus that she is not willing to accept a man who is in a relationship with
another woman. Her strong character also becomes obvious in the way that she deals
with her apparently hopeless situation concerning her father locking her away from
her beloved at night. Actually, she has set up a plan that could help her break free
from her hopeless situation:
SILVIA:

Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,

To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;

66

Shakespeare William, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

53

The Two
Gentlemen of
Verona

And for the ways are dangerous to pass

I do desire thy worthy company,
Upon whose faith and honour I repose.
Urge not my fathers anger, Eglamour,
But think upon my grief, a ladys grief,
And on the justice of my flying hence
To keep me from a most unholy match,
Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.
I do desire thee, even from a heart
As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,
To bear me company and go with me.
If not, to hide what I have said to thee
That I may venture to depart alone. (IV.3 l.22-36)

This extract illustrates that Silvia tries to convince Eglamour to accompany her on her
way to Valentine as she is well aware of the dangers that await a young woman who is
travelling on her own. It is interesting to analyse the way she tries to convince
Eglamour to escape with her. As a matter of fact, she is fighting with a womans arms
as she repeatedly makes him aware of her hopeless situation in order to awaken his
pity for her. At the end of this monologue her determination and power are displayed
by her decision to travel on her own if Eglamour does not accept to escape with her.
As a conclusion for this chapter one may claim that Shakespeare introduces
certain strong but also certain weak female characters, who are depicted in their fights
with men whose love they are unable to return. As far as this particular topic is
concerned, one cannot clearly state that Shakespeare preferred to represent his female
characters as having exceptionally strong personalities. Indeed, besides the strong
female protagonists, Shakespeare also introduced some female characters who
obviously struggle to break free from their difficult situations.

2.4 Female Characters Who Get Publically Humiliated

Juliet in Measure for Measure, Hermione in A Winters Tale and Hero in
Much Ado About Nothing have a different problem in common, namely facing public
humiliation.
Measure for
Measure

Juliet, one of the female protagonists in Measure for Measure, is pregnant with
Claudios child although they are not married to each other. However, one has to point
out that their sexual intercourse was consensual and both of them had planned to get
married at a later date. Claudio describes their difficult situation as follows:

54

CLAUDIO:

[] Upon a true contract,

I got possession of Juliettas bed.
[] she is fast my wife,
Save that we do the denunciation lack
Of outward order.67 (I.2 l.133-137)

Nevertheless, as Shakespeares protagonists live in a society in which pre-marital sex

was regarded as immoral or even as a crime, Claudio has been arrested and sentenced
to death. However, Phyllis Rachkin, in her work Shakespeare and Women, points out
that in Elizabethan times bridal pregnancy was widely tolerated68 and thus
contradicts the previously quoted theory. In the same context one may also refer to
Juliet Dusinberre, who mentions that [t]he dramatists sympathise with women made
pregnant by men who desert them [by] taking spousals and precontract seriously
[]69. As a consequence, one may wonder why this child, who was conceived before
the actual wedding, is considered a real scandal in this play. The following extract
offers a possible explanation:
CLAUDIO:

[] But this new governor

Awakes me all the enrolled penalties
Which have, like unscoured armour, hung by th wall
So long that fourteen zodiacs have gone round,
And none of them been worn; and, for a name,
Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
Freshly on me. [] (I.2 l.153-159)

Juliet and Claudio have to live with the harsh consequences of their sexual
relationship because their society is governed by a new deputy who has taken over the
place from the old Duke and who obviously wants to rule in a very strict way over his
people.
It proves interesting to analyse Juliets reaction to this difficult situation,
which leaves her pregnant, unmarried and with her future husband imprisoned and
sentenced to death. Juliets short appearance in II.3 depicts her talking to the Duke
who is disguised as a friar. During this conversation Shakespeares heroine
acknowledges that she has made a mistake and she even admits that she has
committed a sin:
DUKE:
JULIET:

Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?

I do, and bear the shame most patiently. (II.3 l.20-21)

67

Shakespeare William, Measure for Measure

Rachkin p.37
69
Dusinberre pp.59-60
68

55

Later in this scene Juliet also confesses that she really loves Claudio and that they had
sexual intercourse by mutual consent. It becomes obvious that the only way for Juliet
to deal with her helpless situation is to repent:
JULIET:

I do repent me as it is an evil.
And take the shame with joy. (II.3 l.37-38)

This scene gives the audience the impression that Juliet is a weak person who is ready
to admit that she has committed a sin although she slept with Claudio because they
love each other and because they had precise plans to get married to each other. An
Elizabethan reader, however, might regard Juliet as a weak woman for a completely
different reason as Juliet Dusinberre points out:
A womans chastity included all other virtues; loss of chastity meant the loss of virtues which
in men existed independently of chastity. A man might sleep with a woman not his wife and
remain courageous, generous, honest. A woman, on the other hand, in that one act registered
her own worthlessness in every other sphere.70

In this context Juliet may easily be regarded as a sinful and weak person who deserves
to be caught in this hopeless situation and for whom repenting is just a timid attempt
to break free from her difficult position.
Moreover, one gradually realises that the way Juliet is perceived by the leading men in
the play is quite different from what she is really like. For instance, Angelo calls her a
fornicatress (II.2 l.24) and consequently describes her as a merely sinful woman.
However, if one analyses this character, one understands that Juliets personality is far
more complex. She actually seems to be a much better person than the remaining
characters of the play and the only fault she has made is not to have waited to get
married before she slept with her fianc Claudio. In other terms, she is a very strong
woman who usually follows her principles and she is by far not only the simple sinner
to which she is reduced by Angelo.
The Winters Tale

Another Shakespearean heroine who is famous for the public humiliation she
has to endure is Hermione from The Winters Tale. This woman is suspected by her
husband of having an affair with his childhood friend Polixenes. Her husband Leontes
also believes that the child Hermione is expecting has been conceived by Polixenes:
LEONTES:

[] I have said
Shes an adultress, I have said with whom.
More, shes a traitor, and Camillo is

70

Dusinberre p.53

56

A federary with her, and one that knows

What she should shame to know herself,
But with her most vile principal: that shes
A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
That vulgars give boldst titles; ay, and privy
To this their late escape. (II.1 l.89-97)

As previously mentioned, accusing a woman of having committed adultery was the

worse reproach a man could make to a woman because chastity was considered the
most important virtue in an Elizabethan woman. Hermione, who has to deal with this
reproach, really suffers from the fact that the only virtue she apparently possessed,
namely her chastity, has been lost in her husbands eyes. Now that her chastity is
contested, it seems that she is an absolutely bad and sinful person with no other good
characteristics left. That is also why Leontes has decided to imprison her and, worst of
all, to take her son away from her. In her reaction to Leontess harsh treatment of her,
the audience can see that Hermione has definitely got more good qualities besides her
chastity. At the beginning of her conversation with her husband in II.1, she tries to
make him understand that he is mistaken to suspect her of adultery:
HERMIONE:

[] How will this grieve you

When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
You thus have published me? Gentle my lord,
You scarce can right me thoroughly then to say
You did mistake. (II.1 l.98-102)

In the previous extract Hermione is not weak because instead of simply accepting her
husbands view, she fights for the truth.
The second part of this conversation highlights two additional character traits which
qualify her as a very strong woman become evident:
HERMIONE:

I must be patient till the heavens look

With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities. But I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown. [] (II.1 l.108-114)

The previous extract indicates that Hermione will be patient and that she has also
decided not to cry, which is very unlike the behaviour expected from a typical
Elizabethan woman. As a matter of fact, refusing to cry might even make Hermione
look guiltier because her lack of showing emotions might be misinterpreted as a
confession of guilt. Nevertheless, she mentions her deep grief in the lines quoted
above, which can be regarded as a proof of her innocence. Consequently, Hermione

57

can be regarded as a strong woman because she remains patient and innocent while
being charged with false accusations.
Her strength also becomes obvious once more a few lines later when
Hermione addresses some words to her servants:
HERMIONE:

[] Do not weep, good fools,

There is no cause. When you shall know your mistress
Has deserved prison, then abound in tears
As I come out. This action I now go on
Is for my better grace. [] (II.1 l.120-124)

She actually comforts her servants by telling them not to cry for her. She does not
want them to feel any pity for her situation because she thinks that she will be strong
enough to fight for her rights and that eventually the truth will be revealed.
Finally, Antigonuss words directed at Leontes are also of interest:
ANTIGONUS:

It is for you we speak, not for ourselves.

You are abused, and by some putter-on
That will be damned fort. Would I knew the villain
I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flawed- (II.1 l.142-145)

Antigonuss words are important because they reveal that he, as well as the majority
of the other people surrounding Hermione at the court, can see that Leontess
suspicions are wrong. Antigonuss intervention also emphasises another one of
Hermiones qualities, namely her honesty that the people at the court appreciate.
Nevertheless, Leontes can by no means be convinced of his wifes innocence
and so he arranges a public trial for Hermione. This public hearing which Leontes
arranged to prove his own impartiality turns into a public shaming []71. As a matter
of fact, Leontes wants to publically humiliate his wife by proving that she committed
adultery. His wife, however, tries to prove that she is innocent by staying very calm
and civilized. Steve Davies claims that civilisation itself is personified and arraigned
in the form of the noble Hermione at her trial.72 Hermione indeed appears as very
noble during the trial. This is due to her eloquence evident in her intentions to defend
herself against Leontess unfair accusations. One example of her eloquence while
trying to prove that she is innocent becomes evident in the following lines:
HERMIONE:

Since what I am to say must be but that

Which contradicts my accusation, and
The testimony on my part no other
But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me

71
72

Dusinberre p.219
Davies p.154

58

To say Not guilty. Mine integrity

Being counted falsehood shall, as I express it,
Be so received. But thus: if powers divine
Behold our human actions as they do
I doubt not then but innocence shall make
False accusation blush, and tyranny
Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know
Who least will seem to do so my past life
Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true
As I am now unhappy; which is more
Than history can pattern, though devised
And played to take spectators. For behold me,
A fellow of the royal bed, which owe
A moiety of the throne; a great kings daughter,
The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing
To prate and talk for life and honour, fore
Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it
As I weigh grief, which I would spare. For honour,
Tis a derivative from me to mine,
And only that I stand for. [] (III.2 l.21-44)

After having established that she is not guilty and that her honesty has remained
intact, she addresses her husband directly. She asks him to remember his positive
opinion of her before Polixenes arrived at the court. Eventually, she points out that her
relatives and the members of the court could despise her if it was ever proved that she
betrayed the King. After her eloquent speech Leontes only scoffs at his wifes
defence:
LEONTES:

I neer heard yet

That any of these bolder vices wanted
Less impudence to gainsay what they did
Than to perform it first. (III.2 l.54-56)

Juliet Dusinberre offers a possible explanation for Leontess disbelief expressed in the
previous lines:
He interprets her eloquence as effrontery, urging condemnation of her not for what she says,
but for saying it all. Fearless speech spells shamelessness, a masculine disregard for feminine
propriety. Leontes essays the same technique for silencing Paulina, calling her dame Partlet:
LEONTES:
A callat of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,
And now baits me! (III.2 92-3).
But Shakespeare demonstrates in this play almost more than in any other, that conventions of
femininity have no relevance in the tribunal of right and wrong.73

Although fearless speech was not considered a typical characteristic of a woman,

Hermione continues speaking eloquently because she definitely wants to prove her
innocence. Staying silent might turn her into an ideal woman but it will not help her to

73

Dusinberre pp.219-221

59

break free from the difficult situation she is trapped in at the moment. Thus, she
admits for example that she loved Polixenes but only because Leontes wanted her to:
HERMIONE:

For Polixenes,
With whom I am accused, I do confess
I loved him as in honour he required;
With such a kind of love as might become
A lady like me; with a love, even such,
So, and no other, as yourself commanded;
Which not to have done I think had been in me
Both disobedience and ingratitude
To you and toward your friend [] (III.2 l.60-68)

Hermione also tries to tell Leontes once more that he is just imagining her infidelity.
By doing so she proves to be strong but simultaneously her words are rather
dangerous because if an Elizabethan woman accused her husband and at the same
time the King of imagining things, she could be sentenced to death. In this context one
may wonder if it had been better for Hermione to stay quiet and to appear less strong.
Nonetheless, Hermione remains powerful until the very end of the trial.
Although losing consciousness during the trial as well as her utterance that she has no
pleasure in life anymore could be interpreted as signs of weakness, she still makes
proof of her strength in the following lines:
HERMIONE:

The Emperor of Russia was my father.

O that he were alive, and here beholding
His daughters trial; that he did but see
The flatness of my misery yet with eyes
Of pity, not revenge. (III.2 l.118-121)

Hermione obviously does not seek any revenge for her unfair treatment. Albeit her
physical weakness at the end of the trial, she still stays strong in her eloquence. This
strength indicates that she has not surrendered and given up the fight for the truth yet.
Eventually, one may conclude that as chastity, the most important virtue in an
Elizabethan woman, has been taken away from Hermione by her husbands false
accusations of adultery, she is caught in a weak and hopeless position. However, she
is ready to pursue her fight by employing strong words in order to convince her
husband of her innocence. In fact, Hermione gets her exceptional strength from her
knowledge that she has nothing to lose anymore once her children have been taken
away from her.
It is also obvious that on the one hand Hermione is not as active as some other female
characters from Shakespeares comedies, whereas on the other hand she is
extraordinary in her patience and tolerance towards her husbands unfair treatment.

60

Hermione allowed Shakespeare to depict a woman possessing two typical female

virtues which eventually also help her to reach her freedom. Thanks to Hermione,
Shakespeare manages to illustrate that women did not necessarily have to be
rebellious to achieve their goals. Indeed, women could also reach their aims if they
were willing to persevere in their patience although of course they had to wait longer
for their eventual success. Sustained patience and tolerance are very positive and
strong character traits considered rather untypical of women, who were traditionally
regarded as the weak sex in Elizabethan times. As a consequence, one realises once
more that Shakespeare was a very innovative playwright who managed to represent
women as strong characters unlike his contemporary playwrights.
In this context, one may refer to Jonson, who in his comedy entitled Volpone,
also introduces his audience to a very silent and patient woman who suffers from her
husbands suppression. First of all, Corvino does not tolerate his wife standing at the
window because in his eyes this behaviour is synonymous to exposing herself in order
to attract other men. It is obvious that Corvino is extremely jealous and that is why he
eventually confines his wife to their house. He even goes as far as threatening to kill
her if she ever appears at the window again because her emergence at the window
dishonours him as he will be conceived as the husband of a disobedient and unchaste
woman:
CORVINO:

What couldst thou propose

Less to thyself, than in this heat of wrath,
And stung with my dishonour, I should strike
This steel into thee, with as many stabs
As thou wert gazd upon with goatish eyes? (II.5 l.31-35)

The readers soon realise that Corvinos death threats are by no means empty words
because he eventually punishes his wife by depriving her of her freedom:
CORVINO:

[] I will have this bawdy light dammd up;

And till t be done, some two or three yards off,
Ill chalk a line; oer which if thou but chance
To set thy desprate foot, more hell, more horror,
More wild remorseless rage shall seize on thee,
Than on a conjuror that had heedless left
His circles safety ere his devil was laid.
Then heres a lock which I will hang upon thee,
And, now I think on t, I will keep thee backwards; (II.5 l.52-60)

The previous passage could be interpreted by modern spectators as a very harsh

treatment of women. However, confining women to their houses and not allowing
them any liberties was a common behaviour of men living in patriarchies in the 17th

61

Volpone

century as the following words expressed by the English traveller Thomas Coryat
establish:
The gentlemen do even coop up their wives always within the walls of their houses . . . So that
you shall very seldom see a Venetian gentlemans wife but either at the solemnization of a
great marriage, or at the Christening of a Jew or late in the evening rowing a gondola. (Coryat
2003: 27-8)74

Given the fact that confining women to their home was a common method used by
Venetian men to punish their wives, Celias lack of reaction when she hears her
husbands decision is understandable as she is aware of the uselessness to reason with
her spouse. Even when Celia intends to argue with Corvino, her weak rebellion will
not lead to any freedom because her husband interrupts her at once and thus he does
not give her the slightest opportunity to express her arguments. Celia is conscious of
her inferior position in their relationship and so it is not surprising that she leaves
without uttering another word to defend herself as soon as Corvino orders her to go
away.
Having had a closer look at Celia and Corvinos relationship, certain similarities to the
way Shakespeares Hermione is treated by her husband in The Winters Tale can be
established. The most obvious parallel between both female protagonists is their
impotence to react to their husbands unfair treatment of them. As they both believe
that it is hopeless to rebel against their spouses, they have decided to endure their fate
patiently. However, a significant difference between Celia and Hermione becomes
evident in the course of the plays. Whereas Hermione eventually takes her revenge on
her husband, Celia remains inactive throughout the entire play. Indeed, she can be
considered the constant victim whose situation is even aggravated as the play
progresses. For instance, Corvino, who made proof of his extreme jealousy in the first
act, is willing to use his wife in order to be accepted as Volpones heir. As a matter of
fact, Celias husband is ready to force her to sleep with Volpone, who does not seem
fit enough to survive sexual intercourse, so that he can inherit Volpones belongings.
When Corvino informs Celia of his cruel plan, she is understandably outraged but
once again her reaction towards her husband proves to be very weak:
CELIA:

Sir, kill me, rather: I will take down poison,

Eat burning coals, do anything (III.7 l.117-118)

74

McEvoy Sean, Ben Jonson Renaissance Dramatist, Edinburgh University Press, 2008, p.57

62

Celia tries to reason with her husband by emphasising that forcing her to have sexual
intercourse with another man is synonymous to dying and so she offers to sacrifice her
life instead. Of course, Corvino, whose sole interest consists in inheriting Volpones
possessions, does not respond to his wifes offer but instead he eventually threatens to
humiliate her by calling her a whore in public:
VOLPONE:

Heart, I will drag thee hence home by the hair;

Cry thee a strumpet through the streets; rip up
Thy mouth unto thine ears; and split thy nose,
Like a raw rochet! [] (III.7 l.120-123)

Celias lack of reaction to Corvinos cruel threats indicates her awareness that she is
absolutely inferior to her oppressive husband. Indeed, the fact that she describes
herself as a martyr her husband is free to use whatever way he wants (III.7 l.131)
reflects her surrender due to her complete helplessness.
After having been used as chattels by her own husband, Celia also becomes the victim
of Volpone, who eventually proves not to be as close to death as Corvino had
previously assumed. When the old man intends to seduce Corvinos young wife, Celia
tries to plead with him but once more she uses rather weak arguments in order to
protect herself:
CELIA:

Do me the grace to let me scape: - if not,

Be bountiful and kill me. [] (III.7 l.287-288)

Similar to her pleading with her husband at the beginning of this scene, Celia offers to
sacrifice her life in order to prevent herself from having sexual intercourse with
Volpone. Whenever Celia employs this weak argument, Jonsons female protagonist
obviously lacks the intellectual means to use powerful words or to set up wellelaborated plans, which would allow her to outsmart her male counterparts, who are
not depicted as specifically intelligent beings. In this context, an important difference
between Shakespeares patient female characters and Celia becomes evident. Indeed,
Hermione makes use of her extraordinary wit in order to elaborate a complicated plan,
which eventually allows her to escape from her initial hopeless situation. Celia, on the
other hand, does not seem to have the necessary mental capacities to free herself from
her hopeless situation. In fact, she has to rely on another man, Bonario, to escape from
Volpone who would not have resiled from raping Celia if she had not agreed to sleep
with him. The fact that Bonario has to save Celia is an additional indication for her
position as the constant victim, who is not only unable to free herself from difficult
situations but who is subsequently blamed by her husband:

63

CORVINO:

This woman, please your fatherhoods, is a whore,

Of most hot exercise, [] (IV.5 l.157-158)

Although Celia did not sleep with Volpone, her husband nonetheless calls her a whore
in public, which at Elizabethan times was one of the most terrible accusations that
could be made against a woman. As if these accusations were not hard enough for
Celia, she eventually even has to endure a punishment which consists in sending her
back home to her father, a decision which illustrates that Celia will remain dependent
on another authoritative man. Given the fact that the large majority of Jonsons
characters in this comedy are depicted as unlikeable beings, one can easily assume
that Celias father will most likely not treat her more respectfully than the other male
characters she was confronted with.
Although Celia has to endure numerous injustices in the course of the play, it is
difficult for the audience to feel pity for Celia. This lack of sympathy for Jonsons
female protagonist is largely due to the fact that the spectators are unable to identify
with Celia as her passiveness does not turn her into a realistic and hence likeable
character. The fact that Celia is not capable to defend herself against numerous foolish
men allows the spectators to feel superior to her and to consequently regard her as a
weak woman, who merely remains a victim throughout the entire play. This
characteristic represents a decisive contrast to Shakespeares Hermione; she did not
remain the passive victim but underwent a complex psychological development,
which eventually allowed her to break free from her confinement. This evolution
allows Shakespeares spectators to conceive the female protagonist of The Winters
Tale as a very convincing and likeable being whose struggle for more autonomy even
gave the viewers the opportunity to identify themselves with her. This final aspect
turns Shakespeare into an innovative playwright for his time as he managed to
introduce his audience to a new feature of comedies, namely the opportunity for the
audience to identify with strong, active and likeable female characters, who
experience a psychological development and are not trapped in their roles as victims.

Much Ado about

Nothing

Hero in Much Ado about Nothing is the victim of a bad trick played on her
fianc Claudio. Don John has his companion Borachio make love to Margaret, Heros
serving woman, at Heros window at night. Don John makes sure that Don Pedro and
Claudio witness the scene. Believing that Hero has an affair with Borachio, Claudio
64

publically humiliates Hero by accusing her of lechery on their wedding day and by
abandoning her at the altar:
CLAUDIO:

O Hero! What a Hero hadst thou been

If half thy outward graces had been placed
About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!
But fare thee well, most foul, most fair, farewell
Thou pure impiety and impious purity.75 (IV.1 l.100-104)

Claudio also accuses Hero of the worst sins an Elizabethan woman could commit,
namely infidelity and adultery. Indeed, in the Early Modern period a womans honour
was based on her virginity and chaste behaviour. As previously stated, if a woman lost
her honour by having sexual intercourse before her marriage, she was very likely to
lose all social standing. Moreover, the reputation of her entire family would be
affected negatively.
Thus, Hero has to deal with the same kind of accusations as Hermione in The
Winters Tale, but does Hero also react in the same strong way as Hermione?
Before the scene in front of the altar, Hero has appeared to be a very calm character,
who would consequently have been considered the ideal obedient daughter and
woman in Early Modern England. In this context it is slightly surprising to see that
Hero initially tries to contradict Claudios accusations in order to prove her innocence.
However, Claudio does never really give her the opportunity to defend herself. In fact,
when she blushes in shock and humiliation, he shouts:
CLAUDIO:

Would you not swear,

All you that see her, that she were a maid,
By these exterior shows? But she is none.
She knows the heat of a luxurious bed.
Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty. (IV.1 l.38-42)

It is important to notice Heros shyness which is not only obvious in her short answers
to Claudio in the scene at the altar but her timidity and virtue also become especially
evident in Heros reaction to Claudios words when he first pronounces his
accusation:
CLAUDIO:

Behold how like a maid she blushes here!

O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal!
Comes not that blood as modest evidence
To witness simple virtue? (IV.1 l.34-38)

75

Shakespeare William, Much Ado about Nothing

65

Heros blushing is interpreted by Claudio as a sign of her guilt but it can also be seen
as a proof of her innocence. Actually, blushing when being accused of adultery
confirms Heros honesty and faithfulness, or in other terms, her general unwillingness
to sleep with a man before her wedding. However, her lack of means to defend herself
becomes fatal for her as it is interpreted by Claudio as a sign of her guilt. In this
context we have to remember that while Elizabethan men had the possibility to regain
their lost honour in physical fights like duels, Elizabethan women had no means to get
their honour back. Consequently, Hero, in comparison to Hermione, is a rather weak
character as she cannot really defend herself against Claudios false accusation
because she believes that she has lost her honour for ever.
After the analysis of three different female characters who were humiliated in
public, it is evident that they had different ways of dealing with their difficult
situations. All three of them tried to convince the other characters of their innocence
although Hermione appears to be the strongest and to fight the hardest to obtain
justice. This, however, might be explained by the fact that Hermione is older than
Juliet and Hero and that she is a mother who also fights for the right to keep her
children. Lisa Jardines view on what these female characters have in common offers
a concise conclusion to the analysis of the previously debated characters:
Shakespeares chaste women falsely accused of sexual misdemeanours share a dignity and a
female heroism with these female saints, withstanding nobly and in silence the tainting of their
virginity albeit only by repute. Hermione faces her husbands false accusation that she has
committed adultery with Polixenes, and its consequences (loss of her husband, removal from
her of her young son, who subsequently dies, and of her baby daughter, taken from her breast)
with Griseldas patience, and the saint-falsely-accuseds silence [] Hero swoons away into
silence when accused of unchastity by her husband-to-be at the altar. To her father she swears:
If I know more of any man alive
Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,
Let all my sins lack mercy! O my father,
Prove you that any man with me conversd
At hours unmet, or that I yesternight
Maintaind the change of words with any creature,
Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.
Hermiones patience, Heros willing submission to martyrdom by torture, surrounds them with
a halo of female heroism which shines out vividly from these scenes.76

76

Jardine p.189

66

2.5 Female Characters Who Have to Act Against Their

Beliefs
Whereas Juliets difficult situation at the beginning of Measure for Measure
was a topic in the previous chapter, this final chapter of the first section focuses on the
other female heroine of this play, namely Isabella. This character, who is very
virtuous, religious and chaste, is about to join a nunnery when she hears that her
brother has been imprisoned and might get sentenced to death because he impregnated
Juliet although they are not married yet. Isabella wants to help her brother, whom she
loves very much, but the only way to save him is for Isabella to sleep with Angelo,
Claudios potential saviour. Thus, the final difficult situation analysed in this thesis
refers to a woman who is forced to do something that goes against her strong belief.
Isabella has indeed a very strong religious belief and her desire for strictness
might even be exaggerated. This becomes obvious when she asks the nuns if she could
have stricter restraints than another sister at the nunnery:
ISABELLA:

[] I speak not as desiring more,

But rather wishing a more strict restraint
Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.77 (I.4 l.3-5)

Isabellas wish for stricter restraints depicts her as removed from a natural human
being. As a matter of fact, she will have to become more moderate in her views in
order to become really human. Lucio also uses words to refer to Isabella, which
illustrate that she does not have a lot in common with a normal human being.
Indeed, he refers to her as a thing eskied, an immortal spirit and a saint (I.4 l.334) in her pious restraint and devotion. These descriptions reflect how removed Isabella
is from reality and how ill-adapted she is to the world.78
Although Isabella seems very stubborn and strong-willed as far as her belief in God
and her devotion as a nun are concerned, she at first does not perceive herself strong
enough to be able to help her brother as the following extract from her conversation
with Lucio shows:
ISABELLA:

Alas, what poor

Abilitys in me to do him good? (I.4 l.74-75)

77
78

Shakespeare William, Measure for Measure

http://www.gradesaver.com/measure-for-measure/study-guide/section1/ [Date of access: 12-04-2012]

67

Measure for
Measure

Isabellas encounter with Angelo is very revealing about whether she can be
considered a strong or weak character. During this conversation Isabella repeatedly
wants to stop fighting for her brothers life as she has the impression that she does not
have the necessary power to win this battle. However, whenever she wants to give up,
Lucio successfully encourages her to continue trying to convince Angelo to release
her brother. Her method to make Angelo change his mind consists in pointing out
womens naivety as well as defending her brother by explaining that he acted out of
love. Her convincing words finally lead Angelo to ask Isabella if she would accept to
sleep with him in order to save her brother. Isabellas initial reaction to this offer is as
follows:
ISABELLA:

As much for my poor brother as myself.

That is, were I under the terms of death,
Thimpression of keen whips Id wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere Id yield
My body up to shame. (II.4 l.99-104)

Isabella would never offer her body to save her brother because her belief in chastity
seems to be stronger than her love for her brother. As the scene progresses,
Shakespeare depicts Isabellas stubbornness and chastity. When Angelo asks her
whether it would be better for her to give up her chastity or for her brother to be
killed, she gives the following answer:
ISABELLA:

Better it were a brother died at once

Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die for ever. (II.4 l.107-108)

Although this fierce decision, fuelled by the importance Isabella grants her chastity,
might be regarded as rather shocking, she was only able to pronounce these words
because she is convinced that her brother will understand her decision:
ISABELLA:

Though he hath falln by prompture of the blood,

Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour
That had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, hed yield them up
Before his sister should her body stoop
To such abhorred pollution.
Then Isabel live chaste, and brother die:
More than our brother is our chastity.
Ill tell him yet of Angelos request,
And fit his mind to death, for his souls rest. (II.4 l.178-187)

Another sign of the love that she feels for her brother becomes obvious in the
following lines:
ISABELLA:

68

O, were it but my life,

Id throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin. (III.1 l.102-104)

On the one hand, Isabellas love for her brother is so immense that she would be
willing to die for him but, on the other hand, her virginity has such an importance in
her eyes that she can by no means give it up.
At this moment of the play one gets the impression that Isabella finds no way
out of her hopeless situation but before abandoning her fight completely, she tries a
final trick on Angelo:
ISABELLA:

Sign me a present pardon for my brother,

Or with an outstretched throat Ill tell the world aloud
What man thou art. (II.4 l.152-4)

Isabella threatens Angelo that she will talk about the offer he has made to her but Lisa
Jardine explains why Angelo is not impressed by this threat:
Isabella does threaten to denounce Angelo, but she threatens to do so without giving in to him.
Angelo is correct in taunting her with the promise that no one will believe her because of his
own unsoild name, thaustereness of [his] life (II.iv.155). She would only be believed, of
course, if she had actually been raped []79

Consequently, one realises that Isabella tries to be strong enough to fight for her
brothers freedom and life but the means she has at her disposal are not strong enough
to be successful.
The next focus lies on the discussion between Isabella and Claudio in which he
tries to convince her to give in to Angelo, which would save his life but which of
course would also mean that Isabella would lose her virginity and thus her chastity.
Having got a first impression of her character at the beginning of the play, it is not
surprising that Isabella is shocked and outraged at her brothers suggestion. She
actually reacts rather harshly by mentioning that it would be best for her brother to die
immediately:
ISABELLA:

Thy sins not accidental, but a trade.

Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd.
Tis best that thou diest quickly. (III.1 l.151-153)

Lisa Jardine points out that in this situation Isabella acts unlike a typical pious
character as otherwise she would stand firm and submit to torture, ending only with
her death and martyrdom.80 Isabella does obviously not understand that giving up her

79
80

Jardine p.191
Jardine p.191

69

virginity in order to save her brothers life could be regarded as a virtue itself and no
longer as a sin. Instead she is only able to consider her situation as extremely tricky.
After all, losing her virginity is synonymous for her to being damned eternally. Of
course, the fact that her brother does not share her belief eventually leads to the actual
dilemma she is caught in. As a result Isabella is weakened by her very strict beliefs
and views which do not allow her to escape this hopeless situation.
At this point of the play it has been established that Isabella has to deal with a
real dilemma. In her fight she has shown different character traits and she could be
witnessed in strong as well as in weak moments. At the very beginning she believes
that she is not able to help her brother at all because she does not have the necessary
power. Then she gains some strength thanks to Lucio and she dares to confront
Angelo in order to convince him to save Claudio. When she is offered the deal to
sleep with Angelo in order to save her brother, she appears as very strong-willed as far
as staying loyal to her principles is concerned. One could even perceive her as being
too strong-willed as well as too stubborn because she would apparently be willing to
accept her brothers death in order to save her virginity.
In this section the main focus lay on different Shakespearean characters who
are caught in difficult situations and who struggle to break free from these situations
more or less successfully. In the following section some more major characters will be
analysed in order to assess if they remain the victims of their problematic situations or
whether they keep on fighting and eventually succeed in escaping their difficulties.

70

3 Section Two: The Female Characters

Plans of Action

The second section of this dissertation focuses on the different plans of action that
allow the female characters in Shakespeares comedies to break free from the various
hopeless situations they are caught in at the beginning of the respective plays. The aim
of the second section consists in illustrating that the Elizabethan playwright depicted
his female characters as intellectually alert beings who succeed in setting up various
clever plans to escape their inferior positions in their patriarchal society. The second
section will also be divided into different chapters which allow a thorough analysis of
the womens cleverness evident in their way of acting as well as in their way of
speaking. As regards the different topics dealt with in this section, the first chapter
concentrates on women who at first do not seem to be powerful enough to break free
from their initially hopeless situations, but who nevertheless are able to act eventually
because they are helped by another character. Next the protagonists different motives
for their plans of action, like for example helping someone else or helping themselves,
are discussed. The following chapter illustrates that some of Shakespeares comic
women express their power by inventing clever plans of action only to entertain
themselves. The end of this section analyses in how far the device of disguise as well
as womens wit are able to help Shakespeares female characters in their quest for
more individual freedom.

71

3.1 Female Characters Who Are Supported with Their Plans

of Action
The Two
Gentlemen of
Verona

In the first chapter of this dissertation Silvia, the protagonist of the comedy The
Two Gentlemen of Verona, and her hopeless situation have been discussed in detail
(cf. pp.53-54). In this context it was briefly stated that Silvia is not powerful enough
to escape from this situation on her own. In her hopelessness she turns towards
Eglamour expecting him to help her put her plan to escape into action. As a
consequence, one may wonder about the different means Silvia uses in order to
convince Eglamour to help her. The first time that Silvia approaches him with her
wish to escape from her fathers court can be witnessed in IV.3. As a matter of fact,
she does not immediately express her actual request. First of all, she wants Eglamour
to realise what a positive impression he has made on her. Although she emphasises
that she does not want to flatter him, she exactly does the latter by using words like
valiant, wise, remorseful and well-accomplished (IV.3 l.13) to refer to his
personality. Silvia is well aware of the fact that it might be easier to persuade
Eglamour to escape with her if she first expresses her high esteem for him before
confronting him with her actual request. This approach highlights that this heroine is
rather cunning as she obviously knows that men who feel flattered by a woman are
more likely to finally give in to their demands. Furthermore, Silvia tries to create a
personal bond between Eglamour and herself by reminding him of how dearly he
loved his wife and of how much he suffered when she died:
SILVIA

Thyself hast loved, and I have heard thee say

No grief did ever come so near thy heart
As when thy lady and thy true love died,
Upon whose grave thou vowedst pure chastity.81 (IV.3 l.18-21)

Once Silvia has managed to make Eglamour realise how sad she feels after
Valentines banishment, she finally expresses the favour she wants him to do (cf.
quotation pp.53-54).
In this final part of her monologue Silvia again uses two very witty methods to
convince Eglamour to help her break free from her helpless situation. First of all, she
describes herself as a weak and helpless young woman for whom it is too dangerous
to travel on her own. This description combined with her previous flattering leave

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Shakespeare William, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

72

Eglamour, the typical Elizabethan gentleman, unable to decline her request. Secondly,
she determinedly emphasises at the very end of her monologue that she will travel on
her own if Eglamour is not willing to accompany her. One may wonder if Silvia is
really so determined and strong-willed that she would actually travel to Mantua
without any male company. Although Silvia definitively wants to join her beloved, it
is, nonetheless, very unlikely that she would dare undertake this dangerous trip on her
own at this point of the play. Silvia rather utters these words at the end of her
monologue because she knows that Eglamour no longer feels able to refuse
accompanying her as meanwhile she has managed to create such a deep bond with
him thanks to her flattering comments as well as by reminding him of how harmful it
is to lose ones true love. Thus, announcing that she would also leave on her own is
another psychological trick she uses to convince Eglamour to accompany her.
Although it is doubtful that Silvia would already be strong enough to escape from the
court without any male company, it is nevertheless impressive that a woman like
Silvia, who previously asked for Lucettas advice on everything as she was not able to
take any decision on her own, is all of a sudden capable of not only setting up a wellorganised plan but also of using clever psychological tricks in order to convince a man
to help her break free from her helpless situation.
Thus, in IV.3, the previously extremely insecure and immature female character has
become a bit more independent as she proves to be able to work things out cleverly all
by herself. Although at this point of the play Silvia obviously still relies on someone
elses support, this will soon change, too. As a matter of fact, in V.3, Silvia is able to
fight on her own after Eglamour ran away from her when outlaws crossed their way.
After Eglamour has turned out not to be the trustworthy character Silvia believed him
to be, her aside at the end of this scene Oh Valentine! This I endure for thee. (V.3
l.25) indicates that she has become more powerful and that she is now strong enough
to fight her way back to Valentine without relying on anyone. Consequently, one may
claim that Eglamour, whose name contains the French word amour meaning love,
failed to treat Silvia with respect. However, his quick change of behaviour while
facing the outlaws helped Silvia to realise two different truths. First of all, Eglamours
abandonment makes her understand that you should never trust anyone completely.
Secondly, the fact that Eglamour just pretended to love her makes her realise that she
truly loves Valentine. This knowledge helps Silvia to gather the necessary strength to
continue her fight on her own. As a conclusion one may assume that all the struggles

73

and disappointments Silvia had to face gradually change her from a dependent young
woman into a strong-willed and powerful character.
Measure for
Measure

The next focus lies on Isabella from Measure for Measure. In the first section
of this dissertation it was pointed out that Isabella is depicted as active and strongwilled. Her initiatives, however, led her into a real dilemma from which Isabella sees
no way out (cf. pp.54-56). Nevertheless, Isabella is helped out of this dilemma by the
Duke, who appears in III.1 disguised as a friar. Actually the friar proves to be
extremely helpful for both Claudio and Isabella as he manages to reconcile Isabella
and her brother, who was outraged at his sisters decision to prefer saving her chastity
rather than his life:
DUKE:

CLAUDIO:

Son, I have overheard

what hath passed between you and your sister. Angelo
had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath
made an assay of her virtue, to practise his judgement
with the disposition of natures. She, having the truth
of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial
which he is most glad to receive. I am confessor to
Angelo, and I know this to be true. Therefore prepare
yourself to death. []82 (III.1 l.162-169)
Let me ask my sister pardon. (III.1 l.173)

The Duke is also ready to support Isabella so that her brothers life is eventually
saved. As a matter of fact, the Duke has invented a clever plan which prevents Isabella
from sleeping with Angelo while simultaneously saving Claudio from being killed.
The Duke knows that Angelo was once engaged to a woman called Mariana whom he
refused to marry when she had lost her dowry in an accident at sea. As Mariana is still
in love with Angelo, she is willing to sleep with him instead of Isabella without
revealing her true identity to Angelo:
DUKE:

[] Go you to Angelo, answer his

requiring with a plausible obedience, agree with his
demands to the point; only refer yourself to this
advantage: first, that your stay with him may not be
long; that the time may have all the shadow and silence
in it; and the place answer to convenience. This being
granted in course, and now follows all. We shall advise
this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go
in your place. If the encounter acknowledge itself
hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense; and
hear, by this is your brother saved, your honour
untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the
corrupt deputy scaled. (III.1 l.245-257)

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74

It becomes obvious that Isabella can finally escape her dilemma thanks to the Dukes
plan. Although the latter has planned everything in detail and even if he is the one
who will talk to Mariana, Isabella does not hesitate to take over her part in the con
game, namely telling Angelo that she finally accepts his offer after all. In IV.1
Isabella, after having talked to Angelo, describes the place where she is expected to
meet him as follows:
ISABELLA:

He hath a garden circummured with brick,

Whose western side is with a vineyard backed;
And to that vineyard is a plankd gate,
That makes his opening with his bigger key.
This other doth command a little door
Which from the vineyard to the garden leads.
There have I made my promise
Upon the heavy middle of the night
To call upon him. (IV.1 l.27-35)

The rather negative description of this place illustrates that Isabella is resigned to the
Dukes plan but it does not please her at all. She speaks with sadness about the heavy
middle of the night (IV.1 l.34) as if she was actually expected to sleep with Angelo.
Isabellas pride has obviously been wounded by accepting this exchange although she
does not have to act upon it and still her brothers life is eventually saved.
Consequently, one may wonder why Isabella experiences these feelings although her
dilemma seems to be solved at last. One explanation for her reaction might be that
although she is able to break free from her difficult situation, she realises that this is
only possible thanks to a mans intervention. For a moment she had the opportunity to
make decisions about her own life but at the end she once more had to submit to a
mans plan as it was the norm for women in Elizabethan society.
Hero in Much Ado about Nothing has lost her honour because her future
husband Claudio accused her of infidelity and adultery in front of the altar on their
wedding day (cf. pp.64-66). Heros reaction to this accusation can be considered
extremely weak because she just tries to defend herself once by saying I talked with
no man at that hour, my lord (IV.1 l.87) before she faints. Evidently the question why
she reacts so weakly can be raised. Don John believes that Heros fainting is the proof
of her guilt:
DON JOHN:

[] These things come thus to light

75

Much Ado about

Nothing

Smother her spirits up.83 (IV.1 l.111-2)

However, the audience knows that Hero is innocent and so Don Johns explanation
cannot be accepted as a valid reason for Heros lack of enthusiasm to defend herself.
Actually her lack of initiative is really surprising because in previous scenes Hero
appeared to be rather active and she was even able to set up witty plans. Mihoko
Suzuki shares this opinion as the following extract from the essay entitled Gender,
Class, and the Ideology of Comic Form indicates:
Hero belies most critics assessment of her as a conventionally feminine; meek, self-effacing,
vulnerable, obedient, seen and not heard, . . . a face without a voice (Cooke 1986: 191). In
fact, Hero diverges from this prevalent characterization of her and approaches the boldness of
Ovid and Marlowes Hero when she orchestrates the eavesdropping scene to ensnare Beatrice
in III.i. Carol Thomas Neely observes that Hero here shows qualities usually associated with
Beatrice, a capacity for aggressiveness, realism, and wit (1985: 49).84

Seeing Hero from this point of view allows the readers to interpret her losing
consciousness after her fiancs accusations as a sign of her absolute hopelessness. As
a matter of fact, she is convinced that no one will accept her claims of innocence
because in her patriarchal society women were considered prone to be liars.
Moreover, the members of her society believe that she has lost her virtue, which will
consequently turn her into an outcast of society. Her position in society will be so
deplorable that her father even believes that it would be preferable for Hero to die than
to live with this shame:
LEONATO:

Death is the fairest cover for her shame

That may be wished for.85 (IV.1 l.116-117)

A bit later the audience also realises that Heros worries about her loss of innocence
were well-founded because even her father prefers to believe Claudio and the two
princes instead of his daughter:
LEONATO:

Confirmed, confirmed. O, that is stronger made

Which was before barred up with ribs of iron.
Would the two princes lie? And Claudio lie,
Who loved her so that, speaking of her foulness,
Washed it with tears? Hence from her, let her die. (IV.1 l.151-155)

Leonatos sudden coldness towards his daughter is rather shocking and Hero is lucky
that Beatrice as well as the friar doubt the accusations. Indeed, it is only after these

83

Shakespeare William, Much Ado about Nothing

Suzuki in Callaghan p.132
85
Shakespeare William, Much Ado about Nothing
84

76

two characters have expressed their doubts about Heros guilt that her father also
starts to question his daughters loss of virtue:
LEONATO:

I know not. If they speak but truth of her

These hands shall tear her. If they wrong her honour
The proudest of them shall well hear of it. (IV.1 l.192-194)

Although Leonato still expresses doubts about his daughters innocence, it is

nevertheless reassuring to see that Heros father stays fair. Indeed, he points out that
he will punish her if she has really lost her honour. On the other hand, however, he
also makes clear that he will punish Heros accusers if they have lied about her.
Eventually, the friar introduces the plan to feign Heros death as well as her final
resurrection:
FRIAR:

Your daughter here the princes left for dead,

Let her a while be secretly kept in,
And publish it that she is dead indeed.
Maintain a mourning ostentation,
And on your familys old monument
Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites
That appertain unto a burial. (IV.1 l.204-210)

Hero can be considered to be extremely lucky for being surrounded by people who
love and support her because she would obviously not be able to free herself of this
hopeless situation on her own. However, this is not necessarily due to Heros lack of
strength or strong will but it rather relates to problems Elizabethan society had with
women. Consequently, Shakespeare succeeded in illustrating his societys typical
treatment and view of women by depicting a heroine who is absolutely unable to act
and whose reputation can only be restored with the help of her friends and family.

3.2 Plans of Action to Help Another Woman

Paulina, the lady attending on Hermione in The Winters Tale as well as Mistress
Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, are particularly interesting because both
characters make proof of extraordinary resources in order to elaborate plans to help
other women.
In the first section of this dissertation it has been explained that Hermione was
imprisoned as she could not convince her husband of her innocence and loyalty (cf.
pp.56-60). However, she finds help in Paulina whose first plan consists in showing

77

The Winters Tale

Hermiones baby to the king because she hopes that the sight of a newborn child will
soften Leontes:
PAULINA:

If she dares trust me with her little babe

Ill showt the King, and undertake to be
Her advocate to th loudst. We do not know
How he may soften at the sight oth child.
The silence often of pure innocence
Persuades when speaking fails.86 (II.2 l.40-45)

Paulinas decision to confront Leontes with his newborn child reflects her good sense
because is it not natural to soften at the sight of an innocent baby, especially if it is
your own child? Paulinas initiative makes the audience sympathise with her hope that
Leontes will finally regain faith in his wife. Being aware of the fact that Leontes,
however, is absolutely convinced that his wife cheated on him, it is not very surprising
to see that Paulinas plan fails as Leontess reaction described in the following lines
illustrates:
LEONTES (to Antigonus): My child? Away witht! Even thou, that hast
A heart so tender oer it, take it hence
And see it instantly consumed with fire.
Even thou, and none but thou. Take it up straight.
And by good testimony, or Ill seize thy life,
With what thou else callst thine. If thou refuse
And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so.
The bastard brains with these my proper hands
Shall I dash out. [] (II.3 l.132-141)

Leontess negative reaction to his daughter can first of all be explained by the fact that
he is very stubborn and that he can by no means be persuaded of his wifes loyalty and
innocence. On the other hand, in Leontess eyes, Paulina clearly lacked diplomacy
when she approached him with the baby because she does not seem to be afraid of
him at all. Moreover, she repeatedly criticises him for rejecting his child and for
treating his wife so unfairly:
PAULINA:

I care not.
It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns int. Ill not call you tyrant;
But this most cruel usage of your queen
Not able to produce more accusation
Than your own weak-hinged fancy something savours
Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you,
Yea, scandalous to the world. (II.3 l.115-121)

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78

Although Paulina speaks the truth in the previous lines, she goes a step too far when
she calls the King a tyrant. Theodora A. Jankowski in her essay entitled . . . in the
Lesbian Void: Woman-Woman Eroticism in Shakespeares Plays explains Paulinas
intervention as follows:
Paulina is hardly diplomatic. Instead of trying to persuade Leontes to reconsider his opinions
of his wife or using the infant Perdita as a tool to plead for her mothers release [] Paulina appears as an avenging angel to demand Leontess immediate repentance. Her
behavior is totally out of character for a virtuous woman. Even though she professes to be
Leontess loyal servant, . . . physician, . . . most obedient counsellor (II.iii.54,55), her refusal
to be ruled by her husband (49) in appearing before the king precipitates his condemnation
of her. He not only deems her audacious (42), but she is named a mankind witch (68), a
most intelligencing bawd (69), and a callat / Of boundless tongue who hath beat her
husband (91-2).87

Paulina tries to be strong and fight for her queen but unfortunately her behaviour is
not accepted by her society and thus she is described as a witch. Nevertheless, Paulina
does not surrender but she continues her fight to restore Hermiones honour. That is
why she carries Hermione away after her sons death and then reports to the King that
Hermione has died, too. Once more Paulina is not afraid to blame the King for being
responsible for Hermiones death by using rather harsh words. A few lines later,
however, Paulina apologises for her previous emotional reaction:
PAULINA:

Do not receive affliction

At my petition. I beseech you, rather
Let me be punished, that have minded you
Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege,
Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman.
The love I bore your queen lo, fool afain!
Ill speak of her no more, nor of your children. (III.2 l.222-228)

Paulina represents the voice of sanity in the previous extract. She has realised that
blaming the King is useless as it will definitely not help her in her fight to prove
Hermiones innocence because the more she verbally attacks Leontes, the more he is
going to turn against her as well as against Hermione. Additionally, Paulina has
already figured out a new plan which will eventually allow Hermione to take her
revenge on Leontes for his unfair treatment of her. Actually [e]ven though Paulina
may not have been successful in convincing Leontes of Hermiones innocence []
she does manage to secret and protect her lady until she can finally clear her name.88
As a consequence, one may claim that Paulinas decision to apologise to the King is a

87

Jankowski Theodora A, . . . in the Lesbian Void: Woman-Woman Eroticism in Shakespeares Plays,

in Callaghan, pp.304-305
88
Jankowski p.306

79

very clever strategy. Another sign of Paulinas intellectual strength can be observed in
her capacity to pretend Hermiones death for sixteen years, a plot which needs clever
planning. A woman who is not able to think logically in order to elaborate a plan and
manage different situations would never be able to hide another person for such a long
time and to eventually stage her resurrection.
To conclude, several Shakespearean female protagonists are not successful in
their quests for more power and freedom if they use their power openly. In the latter
case their male counterparts become suspicious and they regard the women in
question as witches. Consequently, several Elizabethan characters elaborated difficult
plans which were secretly put into action, and they had to be patient for several years
until they could eventually experience the successful outcome of their plans.
The Merry Wives
of Windsor

At first sight, Mistress Page from The Merry Wives of Windsor seems to have
elaborated a plan of action to help another character. In this particular case one
initially has the impression that Mistress Page wants to help her daughter Anne whose
father wants her to get married to Slender. Anne, however, is in love with Fenton and
at first it seems that Mistress Page is willing to help her daughter out of this difficult
situation. In III.4 Fenton turns to Annes mother hoping that she will talk in favour of
him to her husband. Mistress Pages answer to Fentons request sounds rather
promising:
MISTRESS PAGE:

Come, trouble not yourself, good Master Fenton.

I will not be your friend nor enemy.
My daughter will I question how she loves you,
And as I find her, so am I affected.89 (III.4 l.88-91)

Mistress Pages reaction seems very positive as she shows real concern for her
daughters interests. The previous lines reflect the idea that this mother really wants
the best for her daughter but it soon becomes obvious that Mistress Page will not
respect her daughters feelings because she actually wants Anne to marry her own
favourite candidate Caius:
MISTRESS PAGE:

Ill to the Doctor. He hath my good will,

And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;
And he my husband best of all affects. (IV.4 l.82-85)

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80

The reason for Mistress Pages wish becomes clear in the previous quotation: she
wants to let her husband know that he is an idiot. As a matter of fact, arranging the
wedding between Anne and Caius would be a personal success for herself because for
once she would go against her husbands decision, which would be synonymous with
gaining some personal freedom. Moreover, Mistress Page has already thought up a
very detailed plan allowing Caius to escape with Anne in order to marry her secretly:
MISTRESS PAGE:

That likewise have we thought upon, and thus

Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,
And three or four more of their growth, well dress
Like urchins, oafs, and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands. Upon a sudden,
As Falstaff, she, and I are newly met,
Let them from forth a saw-pit rush at once,
With some diffusd song. Upon their sight
We two in great amazdness will fly,
Then let them all encircle him about,
And, fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight,
And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
In shape profane. (IV.4 l.46-59)

Mistress Pages plan is very well thought through, which is mainly due to her strong
determination to teach her husband a lesson by going against his wedding plan for
Anne. Of course, it is legitimate to wonder how a woman, who so far was forced to do
what her husband decided, does not respect her daughters wish but is instead willing
to give her away in marriage to somebody Anne does not love. Is Mistress Pages
wish for personal freedom so important to her that she is ready to hurt her daughter
and to make her endure some restrictions, too?
Nevertheless, at the very end of the play when her plan has failed, one notices that her
daughters happiness is after all more important to her than experiencing a personal
victory against her husband:
MISTRESS PAGE:

Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,

Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport oer by a country fire (V.5 l.231-234)

In the previous lines Mistress Page claims that she regarded the entire business of
arranging her daughters wedding as fun and that she did not take it seriously. Of
course, she might claim this only because her plan did not work out. On the other
hand, it is also possible that marrying Anne to Caius was not her first motive but
playing a trick on Master Pages authority was her actual aim instead. Thus, what

81

looked like an initiative to help someone else was actually a way to gain some
personal freedom. In this context one may assume that some of Shakespeares
characters are ready to risk someone elses happiness in order to make proof of their
own power.

3.3 Plans for Self-Help

Alls Well That
Ends Well

This chapter focuses on Helen in Alls Well that Ends Well who becomes
active with the only aim to help herself out of a hopeless situation. In the first chapter
of this thesis Helen was established as a very brave, clever and powerful woman who,
after several struggles before her wedding, is finally abandoned by her husband (cf.
pp.44-47). In a letter he explains to Helen that he will only return to her if the
following conditions are fulfilled:
HELEN:

When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which

never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of
thy body that I am father to, then call me husband;
but in such a then I write a never.90 (III.2 l.57-61)

Bertram tells his wife that he will only be a real husband for her if she can get his
ring and if she gives birth to his child. The audience immediately realises that both
conditions are impossible for Helen to fulfil. How can she get his ring if he never
takes it off and how can she have his child if he does not want to have sexual
intercourse with her? Thus, after her wedding Helen is caught in another hopeless
situation because her husband is not willing to fulfil his marital duties. Helens
reaction to her husbands letter might appear as rather surprising as she at first blames
herself for having chased him away from court:
HELEN:

Poor lord, ist I

That chase thee from thy country and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event
Of the none-sparing war? [] (III.2 l.104-107)

After this first outburst, Helen seems to be rather depressed which explains why she
starts blaming herself again:
HELEN:

No, come thou home, Roussillon,

Whence honour but of danger wins a scar,
As oft it loses all. I will be gone;
My being here it is that holds thee hence. (III.2 l.122-1.125)

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Helen believes that Bertram has left his home to escape from her. She assumes that if
she leaves the court now, Bertram can come home again. The audience most likely
has difficulties understanding Helens reaction. How is it possible that she is willing
to leave the place where she grew up and which can thus be considered her home,
only so that Bertram, the man who really hurt her by first marrying her and then
leaving her, can return home as well as to the life he led before the wedding? Helens
decision indicates her bad conscience that originates from having forced Bertram to
marry her. The next scene, however, makes the audience wonder if Helens only
motive to leave the court consists in giving Bertram the opportunity to return to the
court. In III.4 Reynaldo reads Helens letter to the Countess in which she wrote the
following lines:
REYNALDO (reads the letter):

I am Saint Jaques pilgrim, thither gone.

Ambitious love hath so in me offended
That barefoot plod I the cold grounded upon
With sainted vow my faults to have amended. (III.4 l.4-7)

In her letter Helen mentions that she plans to go to the St. Jaques monastery. At the
end of her soliloquy in III.2 she expressed her intention to leave the court but she
never talked about joining Bertram. Later, however, she appears in Florence dressed
as a pilgrim. In this context one may wonder if it is a coincidence that she arrives in
the city where Bertram is staying at that precise moment. It is more likely though that
it is no coincidence because the St. Jaques shrine was in Spain which is west of
France whereas Florence is east of France. As a consequence, one may assume that
leaving the court was already part of Helens plan to win her husbands heart back.
In III.7, while talking to the widow, Helen finally reveals her actual plan to regain
Bertram:
HELEN:

[] It is no more
But that your daughter ere she seems as won
Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter;
In fine, delivers me to fill the time,
Herself most chastely absent. [] (III.7 l.30-34)

Helen wants Diana, the widows daughter who Bertram has fallen in love with, to first
ask for Bertrams ring and then she should arrange to meet Bertram at night. In the
dark Diana should swap places with Helen, who consequently will have sexual
intercourse with Bertram with the prospect of becoming pregnant. Thus, if she
received Bertrams ring from Diana and if she really became pregnant, Bertrams

83

conditions would be fulfilled and he would have no other choice but to finally be
Helens dutiful husband. At first sight this plan seems to be very clever but in fact it is
quite difficult to be put into practice. The plans complexity reflects how resourceful
Helen is. The spectators most likely anticipate Bertram being fooled and they will
probably enjoy witnessing Helens resources to outsmart her husband. Nevertheless,
Helens plan gives the readers a rather negative image of human beings. First of all,
the fact that Helen is convinced that Bertram will readily accept having sexual
intercourse with the person who he believes to be Diana, depicts men as very lustful
beings. Furthermore, one must not forget that Helen forces Diana to tell lies, bribes
Dianas mother to accept her plan by offering her money for Dianas future wedding,
and tricks Bertram into conceiving a baby with her. These facts represent women as
beings who are able to become very selfish and who do not care about other peoples
feelings as long as they can reach their ultimate goal. This character trait of Helen is
also reflected in her decision to pretend her death:
FIRST LORD DUMAINE:

The stronger part of it by her own

letters, which makes her story true even to the point
of her death. Her death itself, which could not be her
office to say is come, was faithfully confirmed by the
rector of the place. (IV.3 l.58-62)

In fact, pretending her death is necessary because otherwise Bertram would never
return to France. What is more, however, is that Helen does not only trick Bertram
into returning home but she also readily accepts that the people who care about her,
like for example the Countess or the King, honestly mourn her death. In this context
one may even claim that deciding to pretend her own death makes her seem at least as
heartless and cruel as Bertram when he left her after their wedding.
To conclude, Shakespeare once more represented a very strong-willed and
powerful woman who makes proof of her intelligence when she elaborates detailed
plans that help her to win back her husband. However, the playwright also clearly
illustrates that some women are so focused on reaching their goals that they might
eventually hurt or even abuse other characters. In other words, some of Shakespeares
female characters enjoy a certain freedom of being active but it turns them into
ruthless beings. In this context one may claim that the Elizabethan playwright agreed
with his contemporaries on the fact that too much power and freedom could become
dangerous for the women themselves as well as for the people surrounding them. On

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the other hand, however, Helens ruthless behaviour could also be interpreted as
criticism of patriarchal societies, which suppress women in such a way that they are
left no other choice but to hurt people when they try to become active. Indeed,
Shakespeare might have decided to represent his female characters this way because it
allowed him to criticise his patriarchal society, which did not provide its women with
enough freedom. Representing women who actually had to hurt other characters while
fighting for more freedom can be interpreted as Shakespeares attempt to open his
male contemporaries eyes about the fact that they might possibly also suffer under
the womens restricted position in Elizabethan society.

3.4 Plans of Action for Fun

So far the attention has only lain on female characters from Shakespeares
comedies who became active because they had to break free from a difficult situation.
Shakespeare, however, also portrayed some women who set up well-organised plans
of action whose main aim simply consisted in amusing the female protagonists.
Nevertheless, one may wonder if Elizabethan women who became active just to
amuse themselves also experienced some kind of freedom as well as power in their
patriarchal society. This aspect will be analysed with the help of two of Shakespeares
comedies, namely Twelfth Night and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
The first character of interest in this context is Maria, Olivias waitinggentlewoman, from Twelfth Night. In II.3, Maria can be observed in company of Sir
Toby and Sir Andrew. In this scene they are all having a good time together and Maria
cannot be considered inferior to both men but she can rather be regarded as their
equal. As a matter of fact, the audience gets the impression that Maria is well accepted
by the men present in this scene. This becomes especially obvious when they are all
joking about Malvolio:
MARIA:

The devl a puritan that he is, or anything

constantly but a time-pleaser, an affectioned ass that
cons state without book and utters it by great swathes;
the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks,
with excellencies, that it is his grounds of faith that all
that look on him love him; and on that vice in him

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Twelfth Night

will my revenge find notable cause to work.91 (II.3 l.141-147)

In the previous lines Maria is indeed not represented as the typical Elizabethan lady
for whom it was unsuitable to use such words to refer to a man. It is even more
surprising that a bit later in this scene Maria mentions a trick they can play on
Malvolio:
MARIA:

I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of

love, wherein by the colour of his beard, the shape of
his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his
eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself
most feelingly personated. I can write very like my lady
your niece; on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our
hands. (II.3 l.149-155)

Maria has decided to write a letter in Olivias name addressed to Malvolio in which
she will make him believe that Olivia is in love with him. She will also ask him to
meet Olivia while being cross-gartered and wearing yellow stockings. The reason why
Maria intends to put this plan into action is mere pleasure, which becomes evident
after Maria and her friends have observed Malvolio wooing the astonished Olivia.
Marias reply to Malvolio My lady would not lose him for more than Ill say (III.4
l.104) indicates that she is still making fun of him, mainly because she really enjoyed
her previous observation so much.
Nevertheless, Marias plan has rather harsh consequences for Malvolio. As he has
previously made a real fool of himself, Olivia believes that he is mad and thus she lets
him being locked into a small, dark room. While Malvolio is kept as a prisoner, Maria
and her friends take real pleasure in torturing him. For instance, Maria brings a gown
and a false beard for Feste, the clown, who should subsequently pretend to be Sir
Topas, the curate. All in all, Marias plans might seem rather cruel for her victim
Malvolio, who has never hurt Maria very badly. In that context one may point out that
this comedy offers a rather harsh representation of women because even if they do not
have anything to take revenge on or to fight for, they are nonetheless ready to become
active. They even take advantage of their power although they consequently make
somebody else suffer. Even if Malvolio is a foolish character and although the
audience enjoys witnessing the tricks played on him, one gets the impression that
Shakespeare tried to criticise the fact that women with power can become ruthless as
they are likely to hurt other peoples feelings. However, it is also possible to interpret

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86

Marias treatment of Malvolio differently. A considerable number of critics regard

Malvolio very rarely as a victim because critics as well as spectators usually agree that
Malvolio deserves to be humiliated by Maria and her friends. Indeed, at the beginning
of the play, Malvolio is introduced to the audience as the person who has the saying in
Olivias household and who does not treat the other people very respectfully. Thus,
the spectators definitely feel more sympathy for Maria than for foolish Malvolio. This
feeling of sympathy also explains the fact that Maria is regarded as a powerful woman
who manages to express her dislike for a man who has never been very friendly to her.
Another reason that allows the audience to classify Maria as a strong woman is the
fact that she really wants to get married to Sir Toby. Being aware of the fact that
going along with his intention to make fun of Malvolio might eventually provide her
with the man she is in love with, she tries really hard to impress Sir Toby with a
cunning plan. Consequently, Marias tricks played on Malvolio help her to get
married to the man of her choice and thus, for an Elizabethan woman, she has gained
some liberty.
The next focus will be on Mistresses Ford and Page, the main characters of the
comedy called The Merry Wives of Windsor. These two characters have two reasons
to become active, namely taking revenge on foolish Falstaff, who repeatedly tries to
seduce both of them, as well as showing Master Ford that his jealousy is ridiculous
because his wife does not cheat on him.
After Falstaff has sent exactly the same letter to both Mistress Page and Mistress Ford,
it is the latter who initially comes up with the idea about how to take revenge on
Falstaff:
MISTRESS FORD:

[] I think the best way were to

entertain him with hope, till the wicked fire of lust
have melted him in his own grease.92 (II.1 l.63-65)

Mistress Ford also points out that, although she is willing to make fun of Falstaff, she
intends to stay honest:
MISTRESS FORD:

Nay, I will consent to act any villainy

against him that will not sully the chariness of our
honesty. (II.1 l.93-95)

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The Merry Wives

of Windsor

One realises that this character is different from characters like Helen in Alls Well
that Ends Well, who did not care if she hurt somebody or if she did not act lady-like.
The first actual trick that Mistress Ford and Mistress Page play on Falstaff can be
summed up as follows: Mistress Ford meets him at her place while Mistress Page is
hiding so that she can eavesdrop. Before Falstaff comes in, Mistress Ford gave her
servants John and Robert the following instructions:
MISTRESS FORD:

[] be ready here hard by in the brew-house; and

when I suddenly call you, come forth, and without any
pause or staggering take this basket on your shoulders.
That done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it
among the whitsters in Datchet Mead, and there empty
it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side. (III.3 l.8-14)

Mistress Ford has elaborated a very well-structured plan which consists in humiliating
Falstaff by forcing him to hide in the laundry basket. Moreover, she also reveals the
trick they want to play on Falstaff to Robin, his page, so that the latter takes over an
active role in their plot, too.
When Falstaff finally appears at Mistress Fords, he starts declaring his love for her.
Suddenly, Robin comes in with Mistress Page, who warns her friend that Master Ford
is on his way home, which of course is all part of Mistress Fords plan. While warning
her friend, Mistress Page pretends a certain panic about Master Fords arrival by
stressing that he is accompanied by all the officers in Windsor (III.3 l.100) in order
to trigger Falstaffs anxiety about a possible encounter with Master Ford. Finally,
Mistress Page mentions the idea of saving Falstaff by hiding him in the laundry
basket. As Falstaff is panicking and really scared of meeting Master Ford, he quickly
hides in the basket and covers himself with dirty clothes. The womens cunning plan,
whose aim consisted in taking revenge on Falstaff for his foolish wooing, has been
successful because later on Falstaff is outraged about the fact that he was thrown into
the river together with the dirty laundry. Nevertheless, he is very easily tricked a
second time. Without any hesitation he accepts Mistress Fords invitation to come to
her place once more:
MISTRESS QUICKLY: [] Her husband goes
this morning a-birding. She desires you once more to
come to her, between eight and nine. I must carry her
word quickly. Shell make you amends, I warrant you.
SIR JOHN:
Well, I will visit her. [] (III.5 l.42-46)

This second visit at Mistress Fords has actually been planned to have a similar
outcome to Falstaffs first visit. Again Mistress Page interrupts Falstaffs wooing to
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warn her friend that the latters husband is on his way home and that he is extremely
angry as he believes that Mistress Ford is cheating on him. This time the womens
plan consists in lending Falstaff clothes which belong to the aunt of Mistress Fords
maid, so that he can disguise as this woman, who apparently is as big as Falstaff. The
reason why both women have decided to make their victim wear these clothes
becomes obvious in the following extract:
MISTRESS FORD:

I would my husband would meet him in

this shape. He cannot abide the old woman of Brentford.
He swears shes a witch, forbade her my house, and
Hath threatened to beat her. (IV.2 l.76-79)

Indeed, Mistress Fords prediction comes true because Master Ford beats Falstaff,
who he mistakes for the witch of Brentford. Seeing Falstaff suffering as the victim of
these two tricks is good fun. Nonetheless, it also proves to Falstaff as well as to his
society in general that women are no helpless prey for men. Even if it was the
tradition for Elizabethan men to woo women, Mistresses Page and Fords active roles
can be considered evidence of womens ability to select their suitors. Furthermore, by
opposing Falstaffs foolish behaviour to the womens cleverness, Shakespeare proves
that women are by no means intellectually inferior to their male counterparts. Both
scenes in which Mistresses Ford and Page make a real fool of Falstaff serve them to
make Master Ford realise that he is also foolish as far as his jealousy is concerned. He
quickly returns home twice because he believes that his wife is cheating on him in his
absence. However, he is twice proved wrong. It is doubtlessly even embarrassing for
him when he just finds a laundry basket full of dirty clothes respectively a woman he
absolutely hates instead of his wifes presumed affair.
However, whereas other women would have suffered from their husbands jealousy,
Shakespeare illustrates with the help of Mistress Fords character that Elizabethan
women could also counteract their husbands jealousy without disrespecting the
Elizabethan behavioural code. In fact, Mistress Ford is able to put her plan into action
because she is very self-confident. This character trait allows her to establish a
contrast between appearance and reality as she only seems to be cheating on her
husband. As a consequence, Mistress Ford appears to be superior to her husband as
her self-confidence prevents her from letting herself be victimised by her husbands
jealousy. Thus, Shakespeare proves once more to be a very innovative author who
dares to represent strong female characters. In other words, Shakespeares female
protagonists of The Merry Wives of Windsor succeed in establishing themselves as

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active and powerful women who do not let themselves be put into inferior positions
by the men belonging to their society. At the same time they still correspond to the
image of the typical Elizabethan woman, who behaves in a chaste and honest way as
Mistress Pages following words indicate:
MISTRESS PAGE:

Wives may be merry, and yet honest, too. (IV.2 l.95)

On the one hand this line indicates that Mistress Page is as self-confident as her
friend, but on the other hand it also sums up how Elizabethan men perceived married
women. They assumed that it is impossible for women to be merry and honest at the
same time. In this context, it is very positive to see that Shakespeare contradicted this
popular view by depicting married women combining their merriness with their
honesty successfully.
Epicoene

In order to underline how innovative Shakespeares view of women was, one

can compare his characters to Ben Jonsons. As a matter of fact, the latter depicts both
his male and female characters as foolish as the following extract from Epicoene
indicates:
TRUEWIT:

[] this Amazon, the champion of the sex, should beat

you now thriftily for the common slanders which ladies
receive from such cuckoos as you are. (V.4 l.218-220)

Jonson does not only describe his female characters as foolish but he also blames his
male characters for passing on their silly ideas to their female counterparts. In
Jonsons comedies men might consider themselves intellectually superior to women
but the audience realises that men do not dominate women as far as their intelligence
is concerned. It soon becomes evident that both Jonsons male and female characters
are rather foolish beings. Indeed, the male protagonists attitudes towards the adequate
treatment of women is rather foolish and it even influences women negatively so that
they eventually also behave in an irrational way, an idea which is illustrated by
Truewits previous words.
Nevertheless, Jonson also depicts a group of women, the Collegiates, who at first sight
appear to deviate from the other foolish, inactive and inferior women. This group of
women has decided to live separated from their husbands and their aim consists in
expressing their opinions openly. However, once more Jonson does not depict these
feminist women as positive beings but the playwright represents Lady Haughty and
Lady Centaur, of the college, in their schemes of exposure and ridicule (Bevington
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p.79)93. Indeed, these two characters as well as other female Jonsonian comic
characters are repeatedly represented as ridiculous beings. One example for their
ridiculousness is their constant interest in looks and make up, which underlines how
shallow they actually are. Furthermore, they only pretend to be intelligent and learned
because the advice they give Epicoene proves to be quite superficial. For instance,
they warn her of having too many children because it is synonymous with destroying
a womans beauty:
HAUGHTY:

[] Many births of a woman make her old, as

many crops make the earth barren. (IV.3 l.55-56)

Besides reflecting the Collegiates shallow opinions, it goes without saying that this
advice is not very helpful for a woman living in a patriarchal society, in which it was
commonly accepted that one of a womans duties consisted in giving birth to children.
The Collegiates foolishness is also clearly reflected by the plan they have elaborated
in order to seduce Dauphine. As the play progresses, the audience can observe that the
Collegiates scheme against each other in their attempt to seduce Dauphine, which
emphasises their superficiality as well as their lack of wit to set up elaborate and
successful plans. McEvoy refers to Rose, who interprets the Collegiates behaviour as
follows:
[] the actions of the Collegiates, with their cultural and intellectual pretensions, suggest not
the dangerous temptations of eros, but the drive towards female equality and independence,
which Jonson depicts as an aggressive attempt to usurp male authority (Rose 1988: 57).
(McEvoy p.86)

Roses explanation, however, is debatable. Indeed, it proves rather difficult to claim

that Jonson was a misogynist because the Collegiates are not the only foolish
characters in this play but they are surrounded by several silly male characters. Given
the fact that the playwright opts for foolish representations of both sexes, one can
draw the conclusion that Jonson criticises both men and women. Consequently,
Jonsons male characters cannot be considered superior to their female counterparts,
which is a typical characteristic of satirical comedies. The Collegiates superficiality
as well as the nonsense they express cannot be regarded as a symbol of misogyny but
it is merely Jonsons device to entertain his audience successfully. Witnessing the
Collegiates annoying Morose entertains the spectators and it simultaneously allows
Jonson to eventually give Morose his well-deserved punishment. In other terms,

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Bevington David, The Major Comedies in Harp Richard and Stewart Stanley (eds.), The Cambridge
Companion to Ben Jonson, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.79

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Jonsons characters are all very base in order to give the audience the opportunity to
laugh about the characters as well as to feel superior to them. This theory is also
supported by the fact that there are no winners at the end of Jonsons satirical
comedies as both the male and the female characters get punished for their
foolishness. As a matter of fact, in Epicoene, Moroses first punishment consists in the
humiliation he has to endure after his wife has been revealed to be a young man
wearing a womans disguise. As a consequence, their marriage is not valid which
makes his suffering from his wifes talkativeness even more ridiculous. To achieve
the annulment of his marriage, Morose eventually gives his estate to Dauphine:
DAUPHINE:

MOROSE:

You know I have been long a suitor to you, uncle, that out
of your estate, which is fifteen hundred a year, you would
allow me but five hundred during life, and assure the rest
upon me after, to which I have often by myself and friends
tendered you a writing to sign, which you would never
consent or incline to. If you please but to effect it nowThou shalt have it, nephew. I will do it, and more. (V.4 l.164-170)

Morose eventually receives two different punishments for his foolish wish to marry a
quiet woman and for his stubbornness not to delegate a part of his estate to his
nephew.
The Collegiates punishment, on the other hand, is revealed to the audience by
Truewit. He makes these foolish women aware of the fact that by giving Epicoene
advice about life as a wife, they revealed womens secrets to a man, which can
eventually be used against them. Furthermore, Truewit also points out that the
Collegiates spreading of rumours results in the loss of their honour:
TRUEWIT:

[] Away, you common moths of these and all

ladies honours. Go, travel to make legs and faces, and
come home with some new matter to be laughed at: you
deserve to live in an air as corrupted as that wherewith you
feed rumour. [] (V.4 l.224-227)

Concluding, Jonsons decision to punish both the male and female protagonists of
Epicoene can be interpreted as a sign of the playwrights equal conception of men and
women.
Volpone

An additional female character whose representation has a lot in common with

the Collegiates is Lady Pol, one of the female protagonists from Jonsons comedy
Volpone. David Bevington sums Lady Pols personality up as follows:
[Sir Pols] wife is a gossipmonger who yearns in vain to be fashionably dressed and received in
the best society; she is idiotically enamored of all things Italian. Both she and her husband are
amusing in their conflicting attitudes about sexuality: they are fascinated and repelled by the

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notorious courtesans of Venice and inclined to be prudish in their attitudes, and yet Lady Pol
(for all her mistaken jealousy of her husband) flirts outrageously with Volpone. (Bevington
pp.77-78)

As a matter of fact, Lady Pols behaviour can be described as farcical. This

characteristic becomes particularly obvious in the scene in which she believes that her
husband is cheating on her. She seems to worry for completely the wrong reasons as it
is indicated by Lady Pols following statement:
Lady Pol:

[] This heat will do more harm

To my complexion than his heart is worth. (IV.2 l.4-5)

The fact that she blames her husbands unfaithfulness for ruining her complexion
proves that Lady Pol is only able to have shallow reflections. Instead of worrying
about the true consequences for her position in a patriarchal society if her husband left
her for another woman, she only focuses on the consequences of her husbands
possible infidelity on her looks.
Moreover, as stated in Bevingtons previous quotation, Lady Pol pretends to be
prudish by expressing her repulsion of the Venetian courtesans unchaste behaviour.
Surprisingly, she simultaneously apologises to Peregrine for mistaking him for her
husbands affair in a very sexually suggestive way:
Lady Pol:

I hope you ha not the malice to remember

A gentlewomans passion. If you stay
In Venice here, please you to use me, sir (IV.3 l.18-20)

The expression use me, which can have a sexual connotation, reflects Lady Pols
sexual interests in Peregrine. Her sexual offer, which does not correspond at all to an
ideal Elizabethan womans behaviour, could also be interpreted as Jonsons
misogynist view of women as shallow beings whose main interest consist in seducing
men. However, Lady Pols behaviour is so ridiculous and foolish that it is impossible
to conceive her as a lifelike and likeable character. As a consequence, neither male
nor female spectators can sympathise with her as they are unable to identify
themselves with this farcical character.
In this context, one can draw the conclusion that Shakespeare can be considered
innovative for his time because he allowed his audience to identify itself with his
comic female personae who were represented as lifelike and above all likeable
characters. Indeed, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, the protagonists of The Merry
Wives of Windsor, entertain the audience by displaying amusing and harmless tricks.
Thus, the most important difference between these two Shakespearean comic

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characters and Jonsons female protagonists refers to the fact that Shakespeares
comic women are more intelligent than the men who surround them in their respective
plays. As a consequence, the audience experiences a feeling of sympathy for those
clever women, which eventually allows them to identify themselves with the
characters represented on stage. This characteristic, in which Shakespeare excelled,
corresponds to a typical modern view of theatre, which the majority of Early Modern
playwrights were not familiar with. Shakespeares anticipation of this modern attitude
establishes him as a playwright who was ahead of his time and whose works would
consequently become timeless masterpieces.

3.5 Female Friendship as a Tool to Gain more Freedom

The previous subchapter about The Merry Wives of Windsor has introduced the
reader to two women enjoying a very close friendship which allows them to act
against the foolishness of their male counterparts. In this context one may claim that
close friendships between women can be regarded as a tool that allows Shakespeares
female protagonists to become more powerful and active in their fights to gain more
freedom. Besides the friendship between women, disguise as well as womens wit can
be regarded as further tools for women to achieve more freedom and power. Indeed,
these three aspects will be discussed in more detail in the subsequent part of this
dissertation by focusing on the friendships between Lucetta and Julia in The Two
Gentlemen of Verona, Portia and Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice and Helen and
the Countess in Alls Well that Ends Well.
As far as friendship between Shakespeares female characters is concerned,
one has to point out that Elizabethan women frequently had close bonds with each
other because they were usually brought up together isolated from men. That is why
most noble ladies were normally in the company of at least one lady in waiting.
Ladies in waiting can be defined as ladies who lived at a royal court and who were
expected to attend a queen, a princess or another high-ranking noblewoman. However,
a lady in waiting was not exactly the same as a servant. She was rather regarded as a
companion whose role consisted in advising the noble lady. In this context these
relationships prove to be essential for an analysis of Shakespeares comic women
trying to achieve more power and freedom.

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Relationships between a noble woman and her lady in waiting are represented in
several of Shakespeares comedies. What is interesting is that the lady in waiting often
gives advice but she is not necessarily listened to. This is for example the case of Julia
and Lucetta in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. At the beginning of the play the
audience witnesses a very tight and intimate bond between Julia and her waiting
woman. Julia relies on Lucetta to give her advice on important topics. She even asks
Lucetta with whom of her suitors she should fall in love. As a matter of fact, this is a
type of question that you only ask somebody that you know well and that you trust
completely. Consequently, Julias question can be interpreted as a sign of these
womens close relationship. When Julia asks if she should fall in love at all, Lucettas
answer indicates that she is used to giving advice to Julia:
JULIA:
LUCETTA:

But say, Lucetta, now we are alone

Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?
Ay, madam, so you stumble not unheedfully.94 (I.2 l.1-3)

Lucettas answer emphasises that in her eyes rational love is better than passionate
love. One may wonder why Lucetta is so convinced of this idea. In fact, being a
waiting woman and belonging to an inferior social class has made her aware of the
practical nature of marriage. She knows that marriage can be compared to a business
transaction which does not respect a womans feelings. In Lucettas eyes falling in
love passionately is useless because eventually the woman has to accept the man that
was chosen for her. If by any chance, she has the choice between several suitors, it is
advantageous to choose the man that offers the best financial prospects because in that
case the woman can at least enjoy a certain financial stability even if she does not
experience true love. It is obvious that Lucetta has a very realistic view of an
Elizabethan womans position in the marriage business as well as in her society in
general. Lucettas realistic attitude to life also becomes obvious when she tries to slow
down Julias enthusiasm for Proteuss infinite love for her:
LUCETTA:

I do not seek to quench your loves hot fire,

But qualify the fires extreme rage,
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason. (II.6 l.21-23)

Lucetta seems to be more careful than Julia as she might already have made the
experience of getting deceived by a man. Thus, she might want to protect Julia who is

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The Two
Gentlemen of
Verona

rather naive. This also explains Lucettas advice that Julia should have her breeches
with a codpiece (II.7 l.53), which was a covering for the male genitalia. Consequently,
Lucettas comment at first sounds like a joke but it is actually a practical suggestion to
a woman hoping to act as freely as a man. Her comment underlines that Lucetta
understands that social freedom in Elizabethan society is synonymous with maleness.
Although Lucetta gives a lot of warnings and advice, she never tries to convince Julia
to stay at court. Julia would surely have stayed if her lady in waiting had told her not
to leave because she has such a strong influence on Julia. By not stopping her, Lucetta
allows Julia a certain freedom that she herself might also have had at some point in
the past and which allowed her to make all the previously mentioned experiences.
Lucetta has learned that being active and making experiences might be painful but it is
useful in the process of growing up.
Consequently, the character of Lucetta allows Shakespeare to point out that it is
necessary for women to enjoy a certain freedom so that they eventually lose their
naivety and can become more realistic.
The Merchant of
Venice

In The Merchant of Venice another couple of female friends can be observed,

namely the orphan Portia and her waiting-gentlewoman Nerissa. It is important to
point out that these two friends are about the same age although the audience
repeatedly has the impression that Nerissa is older than Portia because she regularly
provides the latter with mature and helpful advice. Both characters can be seen
together for the first time in I.2. In this scene Portia is portrayed as extremely
miserable and Nerissa is trying to cheer her up:
PORTIA:
NERISSA:

By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries
were in the same abundance as your good fortunes
are; and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that
surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.
It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the
mean. Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but
competency lives longer.95 (I.2 l.1-11)

Nerissa tries to lift Portias spirits but her tone is rather strict. She certainly shows
some compassion for Portias feelings but she also wants to make her aware of the
fact that her situation is not completely hopeless and that Portia would feel better if
she followed Nerissas advice. In this context one realises that the relationship

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between these two female characters has a lot in common with a typical motherdaughter relationship although there is hardly any age difference between these two
friends.
Nerissas maturity also becomes evident in the way she defends Portias fathers
decision to provide his daughter with the best possible husband even after his death.
As stated earlier, Portias father included a clause in his will that forces his daughters
suitors to pass the casket test. They are allowed to marry Portia only if they choose the
correct casket. Portias melancholy and sadness, which is obvious from the beginning
of this scene, is due to this casket test. She regards her fathers decision as very
restrictive because it does not allow her to choose her husband (cf. quotation p.36).
Portia feels extremely controlled by her father and especially modern readers would
share her conception of her own situation without any hesitation. That is why one
might feel rather surprised at Nerissas reaction to Portias complaint:
NERISSA:

Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at

Their death have good inspirations; therefore the lottery
that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver,
and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning chooses
you, will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly but
one who you shall rightly love. [] (I.2 l.27-32)

Nerissa does not conceive the casket test in such a negative light as Portia. First of all,
she defends Portias father by pointing out that he was a very virtuous man and that he
included this test in his will because he only wanted the best for his daughter. In
Nerissas eyes the casket test is not a means to control Portia but rather a help to take
the right decision as far as her future husband is concerned.
Of course the lady in waiting understands that a young girl like Portia feels
patronised and controlled but Nerissa is also aware of the fact that the majority of
young Elizabethan girls had to accept their fathers favourite candidates as their
husbands. As she wants to protect Portia from having any hard feelings for her
deceased father, she tries to make her realise that her father was only concerned for
her well-being. Once more Nerissa behaves like a reliable friend and advisor who
does not want her lady to hate her father, but who does not tell her either that she
could never marry the man of her own choice.
In the following part of I.2 Nerissa lets Portia express her opinion of her different
suitors. It is striking that Portia has a very negative view of all of them and that
Nerissa actually lets Portia express her distaste openly. Nerissa probably believes that

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if Portia does not have the freedom to choose her future husband, she should at least
be able to express her opinion freely. Thus, Nerissa does not want Portia to feel
controlled by her lady in waiting as well.
All in all, the entire scene depicts Nerissa as constantly trying to cheer up Portia and
encouraging her to make the best out of her situation. For instance, when Portia claims
that she would be ready to do anything if she has to marry a sponge (I.2 l.90),
Nerissa gives the following answer:
NERISSA:

You need not fear, lady, the having any of these

lords. They have acquainted me with their determinations, which is indeed to return to their home and
to trouble you with no ore suit unless you may be
won by some other sort than your fathers imposition
depending on the caskets. (I.2 l.91-102)

One may doubt if Nerissa really speaks the truth in these lines but this is the only
possible way to calm down her protge.
An additional sign of Nerissas positive influence on Portia can be seen in the
following extract:
NERISSA:
PORTIA:
NERISSA:
PORTIA:

Do you not remember, lady, in your fathers

time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came
hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?
Yes, yes, it was Bassanio as I think, so was he
called.
True, madam. He of all the men that ever my
foolish eyes looked upon was the best deserving a fair
lady.
I remember him well, and I remember him worthy
of thy praise. (I.2 l.109-118)

When Nerissa praises somebody, Portia suddenly also shows interest in that man. This
indicates Portias trust in her waiting woman because she knows that she can entirely
rely on her advice and good common sense. As a matter of fact, the comedy also
offers a proof of Nerissas successful approach because Bassanio eventually becomes
Portias husband. Thanks to this choice of husband, Portia can become more active
and thus enjoy a certain kind of freedom, which is one topic dealt with in the chapter
focusing on disguise (cf. pp.111-115).
Alls Well That
Ends Well

A similar close relationship can be witnessed between Helen and the Countess
of Roussillon in Alls Well That Ends Well except that in this play the relationship can
be compared to a typical mother-daughter relationship. The role of the mother is taken
over by the Countess and her lady in waiting takes over the role of the daughter. This

98

is not surprising due to their age difference as well as due to the fact that Helen grew
up at court after her parents death. Before his death, Helens father had made sure
that the Countess would look after his daughter:
COUNTESS:

[] Her father bequeathed her to me,

and she herself without other advantage may lawfully
make title to as much love as she finds. []96 (I.3 l.97-99)

The Countess meanwhile sees herself as Helens mother as the following lines
indicate:
COUNTESS:

[] I say I am your mother,

And put you in the catalogue of those
That were enwombd mine. [] (I.3 l.135-137)
[]
You neer oppressed me with a mothers groan,
Yet I express to you a mothers care.
Gods mercy, maiden! Does it curd thy blood
To say I am thy mother? Whats the matter,
That this distempered messenger of wet,
The many-coloured Iris, rounds thine eye?
Why, that you are my daughter? (I.3 l.140-149)

The Countess is hurt when Helen calls her mistress, which can be interpreted as an
indication for the fact that the Countess considers herself to be Helens mother. Even
after Helen has explained to the Countess that she has fallen in love with Bertram, the
Countesss son, she continues behaving like a mother to Helen. She encourages Helen
to tell her the entire truth although one can imagine that it is surely not easy for the
young girl to talk to the Countess about the love she feels for the latters son. In their
conversation the age difference between these two female Shakespearean characters
becomes evident because the Countess uses her maturity and experience to give Helen
advice. For instance, she warns her protge of her planned trip to Paris where she
will attempt to cure the King hoping that he will eventually arrange her wedding with
Bertram:
COUNTESS:

But think you, Helen

If you should tender you supposd aid,
He would receive it? He and his physicians
Are of a mind: he, that they cannot help him;
They, that they cannot help. How shall they credit
A poor unlearnd virgin, when the schools,
Embowelled of their doctrine, have left off
The danger to itself? (I.3 l.233-239)

96

Shakespeare William, Alls Well that Ends Well

99

It becomes obvious that the Countess wants to protect Helen from a disappointment.
However, it is surprising that she never tries to stop Helen from undertaking this
dangerous trip to Paris, which might not even end in a successful healing of the King.
Furthermore, the Countesss words at the end of the scene indicate that she eventually
lets Helen go but not without expressing her worries:
COUNTESS:

Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,

Means and attendants, and my loving greetings
To those of mine at court. Ill stay at home
And pray Gods blessing into thy attempt.
Be gone tomorrow, and be sure of this:
What I can help thee to, thou shalt not miss. (I.3 l.250-255)

Although the Countess is worried about Helens well-being, she accepts her decision
to travel to Paris, which mirrors her belief in Helens capacities and strong
personality.
Moreover, it is especially important to notice the last line of the previous quotation,
which shows that she wants the best for Helen and that she tries to support her as well
as possible. In this context the Countess allows Helen to experience a certain kind of
freedom. Although her trip might become difficult and even disappoint her at the end,
she can be active and prove what a powerful woman she is by using her medical
knowledge and skills to heal the King. The Countesss reaction in this scene allows
the audience to assume that she probably used to suffer from her inferior position and
lack of freedom to such a degree that she does not want Helen to make the same
negative experience.
The next encounter between Helen and the Countess is depicted in III.2. This scene is
set after Helen has received Bertrams letter in which he defines the unrealistic
conditions his wife has to fulfil so that he will finally accept his role as Helens
husband (cf. p.82). It is surprising that the Countess is supporting Helen in this context
instead of being on her sons side:
COUNTESS:

[] He was my son,
But I do wash his name out of my blood,
And thou art all my child. (III.2 l.64-68)

This extract emphasises that the Countesss bond to her lady in waiting is closer than
the relationship she has with her son. A possible explanation for the Countesss
feelings refers to the fact that Elizabethan women used to live closely together. One
can assume that the Countess probably spent more time with Helen while raising her
than with Bertram. However, the Countess also realises that her son takes advantage
100

of his superior position as a man in their patriarchal society in order to make Helen
suffer as his inferior. The Countess actually wants Helen to react against this injustice
and unfair treatment of her. That is also why she feels angry and sad about Helens
decision to leave the court:
COUNTESS:

Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!

Reynaldo, you did never lack advice so much
As letting her pass so. Had I spoke with her,
I could have well diverted her intents,
Which thus she hath prevented. (III.4 l.18-22)

The actual reason for the Countesss anger is that she did not succeed in changing
Helens mind by making her aware of the fact that Bertram has not deserved her. She
is even unwilling to accept the idea that Helen has left the court so that Bertram can
come back home because in the Countesss eyes Bertram has won and consequently
Helen has accepted her inferior position.
To conclude one may point out that Alls Well That Ends Well represents a
close relationship between two Elizabethan women from different social backgrounds.
The most important difference between this couple and other similar examples
consists in the fact that in this comedy the noble lady takes over the role of the
counsellor. Thus, Shakespeare shows that it does not matter what social class women
belonged to because they all had to face difficult situations and above all, they could
always help each other to break free from their inferior position imposed on them by
their patriarchal society.

3.6 Disguise as a Tool to Gain More Freedom

In this chapter the topic of disguise is analysed in order to illustrate to what
extent this method could be used by Shakespeares female characters as a means to
experience some power and freedom. A considerable number of Shakespearean
female protagonists wear mens clothes because it empowers them to become more
active and to experience certain liberties that a woman could usually not enjoy in a
patriarchy. However, one should not forget that cross-dressing was not only a device
used by Elizabethan playwrights but it was also a fact in every day Early Modern life.
Juliet Dusinberre explains that in the Jacobean period a group of London women was
fighting for womens liberation by wearing mens clothes and even weapons.

101

Although these early feminists caused a real uproar in their society, similar
movements had already taken place since the 1580s. The first two decades of the 17th
century were also characterised by its own dialogue in the press between the women
who wore mens clothes, and the men who condemned them. Inevitably many
questions were raised by the debate: the custom of differentiating male and female in
dress, and ultimately the whole area of assumption about masculinity and
femininity.97 In addition, Dusinberre emphasises that this debate was also a good
opportunity for playwrights:
For the dramatists, not only interested in women, but also in the ethic of dressing up, this was
a golden opportunity to transpose the man-woman controversy onto the stage. That they are
basically sympathetic to the female protesters is congruent not only with their Puritanism but
with their own position as creators of an art which demands that the sexes exchange clothes.
But there can be no doubt that Jacobean society saw some of the first active protests by
women against their dependence on, and subjection to, men, and like the flappers, or like the
unisex models, they expressed their indifference to social stereotypes about their role by
adopting the clothes of the opposite sex. This was yet another challenge to the dramatists to
explore assumptions about women in their plays.98

Thatcher also comments on the fact that women occasionally wore mens clothes in
every day situations by referring to Fraser Eastons work entitled Genders Two
Bodies: Women Warriors, Female Husbands and Plebeian Life:
In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe hundreds of women dressed up like men and
joined regular armies. Disdain for marriage and a desire for independence may well have been
a motivation. Recent studies suggest, however, that most were working-class women stuck in
low-paying jobs. In England a few adventurous women were already disguising themselves as
men in order to work as labourers, butchers, cooks, porters, shipwrights, plasterers,
ploughmen, stone-cutters, bricklayers, coachmen, pedlars, servants and East India Company
recruits. Those who enlisted in the military took greater risks, but they were also more likely
to be celebrated if they succeeded. Popular culture loved nothing quite so much as a ballad or
broadside about a female warrior.99

In addition, Dusinberre indicates that women did not necessarily wear mens clothes
to turn into men or to be treated like men but a woman in disguise or the masculine
woman in breeches is changed by her male dress only because it allows her to
express desires and delights which society suppresses. Disguise makes a woman not a
man but a more developed woman100. Jardine, on the other hand, claims the following:
For a woman to adopt male dress was correspondingly to shift position in the social hierarchy;
to move from subordination into equality with men.101

97

Dusinberre pp.7-8
Dusinberre pp.7-8
99
Thatcher p.46
100
Dusinberre p.78
101
Jardine p.158
98

102

As cross-dressing apparently used to be rather widespread among women in Early

Modern England, one may wonder how society generally perceived and reacted to this
phenomenon. First of all, it is interesting that cross-dressing was not illegal:
although sumptuary laws contained elaborate regulations of male attire to ensure that mens
clothing would express their exact place in the social hierarchy, there was no legislation
against cross-dressing. In late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England, some women
adopted the fashion of masculine attire, and although moralists strenuously condemned the
practice, it was never made illegal. Moreover, male and female children were dressed in the
same attire in skirts until they reached the age of seven.102

Nevertheless, Elizabethans as well as Jacobeans showed a strong reaction towards

cross-dressing because in their eyes a woman who wore male clothing did not only
threaten to usurp male authority but she attempted to adopt a mans nature. This
attitude is reflected by the words of an angry pamphleteer who, in 1620, attacked the
masculine woman:
for being man like . . . in every condition: man in body by attire, man in behaviour by rude
complement, man in nature by aptnesse to anger, man in action by pursuing revenge, man in
wearing weapons, men in using weapons. And in briefe, so much man in all things, that they
are neither men, nor women but just good for nothing (Hic Mulier: or The Man-Woman: being
a Medicine to Cure the Coltish Disease of the Staggers in the Masculine-Feminines of our
Times, sig.B2)103

In fact, Jacobeans did not only perceive women in mens clothes as eccentric but as
partly a man. In other terms, these women in disguise were considered to be unnatural
monsters and hence were not accepted by society.
In this dissertation the focus lies on the following female protagonists who
opted to cross-dress: Jessica and Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Viola in Twelfth
Night and Rosalind in As You Like It. The analysis of these comic characters illustrates
in how far their male disguise helps them to achieve more power and to eventually
gain more freedom.
Jessica in The Merchant of Venice has decided to wear a male disguise in order
to travel more safely. Thus Jessica, who suffers under her fathers severity, disguises
as a page to escape from her fathers house together with her suitor Lorenzo. When
Jessica first appears in her disguise, she seems rather powerful in her deeds as she
weakens her father by stealing his money. She knows how important money is for
Shylock and that he cares more for his money than for his daughter. Jessicas disguise

102
103

Rachkin p.29
Dusinberre p.233

103

The Merchant of
Venice

allows her to take revenge on her father for having been forced to live in a house that
she considered to be hell. However, it soon gets obvious that she does not feel at ease
in her disguise:
JESSICA:

I am glad tis night, you do not look on me,

For I am much ashamed of my exchange;104 (II.6 l.34-35)

One may wonder if Jessica is just ashamed of being seen in mens clothes because she
does not look like a lady next to her beloved. In fact, a more challenging problem
might be hidden behind her shame and unease. Her escape will eventually make her
Lorenzos wife, which will allow her to convert to Christianity. At this moment she
feels different because she is only pretending to be a man. This realisation actually
projects her future position in Christian society because once she has converted to
Christianity, people will still regard her as the former Jew who is different from them.
In other terms, her shame to appear in a pages costume reflects her worries
concerning her place in Christian society that she will join thanks to her marriage.
Later in the play, when Jessica arrives at Belmont, she is indeed ignored by all the
other characters except for Lorenzo. This treatment of her indicates that she will
always remain the Jew who pretends to be a Christian, and that she will never be fully
accepted by the other Christians.
As a consequence, Jessica has no real opportunity to fully take advantage of her male
disguise. Whereas male disguise allows other female characters to act and to express
their opinions freely, Jessicas disguise only allows her to free herself from her
fathers strict control. Unfortunately, as a Jew, she will never be able to experience
absolute freedom and acceptance in Christian society because she will always be
looked at with suspicion and mistrust. Indeed, her future restricted position in
Christian society is successfully projected by the fact that her male disguise does not
empower her to a greater extent.
Twelfth Night

Next some female characters for whom cross-dressing brought more

advantages and success than for Jessica, will be in the centre of attention. The first
example is Viola, the protagonist of Twelfth Night, who is alone after having lost her
brother in a ship accident. She decides to disguise as Cesario because she was told that
Duke Orsino was looking for a servant:

104

Shakespeare William, The Merchant of Venice

104

VIOLA:

[] Conceal me what I am, and be my aid

For such disguise as haply shall become
The form of my intent. Ill serve this duke.
Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him.105 (I.2 l.48-51)

It is improbable though that Violas only reason to wear mens clothes consists in
finding a job as she would surely have been able to find a job as a woman, too. Even if
Orsino only hires men, there were certainly other ladies in Illyria who employed
female servants. Another possible reason why Viola disguises as Cesario is that it was
more dangerous for a young woman to travel alone in an unknown country than for a
young man. In the course of the play, one also realises that Viola might have had
another motive to disguise as a man. Witnessing how she enjoys certain liberties in
her male disguise makes the audience realise that Viola can act more freely as Cesario
than in her own role. This becomes obvious for example when she contradicts the
Duke in the following extract:
ORSINO:

VIOLA:
ORSINO:
VIOLA:

There is no womans sides

Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart; no womans heart
So big, to hold so much. They lack retention.
Alas, their love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver, but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt.
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much. Make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me
And that I owe Olivia.
Ay, but I know
What dost thou know?
Too well what love women to men may owe.
In faith, they are as true of heart as we. (II.4 l.92-106)

In the previous lines Orsino claims that women are not able to love as intensely and
passionately as men. Viola, who knows how passionately she loves the Duke, takes
the opportunity to contradict Orsino. Considering the fact that Elizabethan women
were perceived as inferior to their male counterparts, Viola could never have had the
freedom to contradict the Duke without her disguise because a woman expressing her
disagreement with a man was not accepted in Elizabethan society.
Moreover, in this scene Viola also takes advantage of her male disguise to express her
own feelings for Orsino by imagining a sister who suffered from heartache:
VIOLA:

[] She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm ith bud,
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,

105

Shakespeare William, Twelfth Night

105

And with a green and yellow melancholy

She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more, but indeed
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love. (II.4 l.110-118)

By comparing her imaginary sister to a monument in the first lines of the previous
extract, Viola succeeds in pointing out that her own passion for Orsino is stronger than
the love he feels for Olivia without saying it outright. She also emphasises that a
womans love and thus her love for Orsino is patient, silent and eternal unlike a mans
love. Furthermore, at the end of the previous extract Viola criticises men in general by
emphasising that men talk and promise a lot. In other words, they are good at making
vows but their promises are not sincere. Thus, thanks to her male disguise Viola can
enjoy the freedom of expressing her opinion and even of criticising men, a liberty she
could never experience as a woman. The problem, however, is that Viola does not talk
openly about her feelings for Orsino as he completely ignores her real identity. This
also explains why Viola is unable to simply reveal her real identity to Orsino. As a
matter of fact, Orsinos whole affection towards Viola/Cesario relies on his wrong
belief that his servant is a young man. Moreover, Viola has no idea how Orsino would
react if he discovered the truth. It is very likely that he would feel so angry and
disappointed that he would banish her from his court, which would leave Viola
completely on her own in a foreign country. That is why she has no other choice but
to continue lying about her identity until Sebastian, her twin brother, finally shows up
at the end of the play.
In this context it may also be stressed that Viola is actually suffering while wearing
her male disguise. In II.2 she refers to herself as a poor monster (l. 34). By using this
expression Viola does not mean that she is ugly but she rather refers to the fact that
she is not really human as she is a woman acting like a man. Furthermore, her disguise
has actually trapped her in a complicated love triangle. On the one hand, she cannot
openly reveal her love for Orsino as he believes her to be a man whereas on the other
hand, she cannot return Olivias love because she is a woman. Valerie Traub also
comments on this difficult situation by referring to the following extract from II.2:
I am the man. If it be so, as tis,
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. . . .
How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly;
And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;

106

And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.

What will become of this? As I am man,
My state is desperate for my masters love;
As I am woman now alas the day!
What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!
O time, thou must untangle this, not I;
It is too hard a knot for me tuntie.
(II.ii.25-41)

In Traubs opinion the previous lines imply that Viola/Cesario is trapped in an

apparently unsolvable love triangle, which is reflected by the pun involving the terms
knot and cannot:
The implied double negative of a knot that cannot be untied is precisely the figuration of her
complex erotic investments: s/he fonds on her master, while simultaneously finding erotic
intrigue and excitement as the object of Olivias desire. The flipside of her anxiety of Olivias
desire is her own desire to be the object of Olivias desire. This desire s/he can (k)not untie
because of its status as negation.106

Evidently Viola suffers from a real identity crisis. If this play was not a comedy, the
character might actually collapse under the pressure. In Shakespeares comedy,
however, his female protagonists identity crisis is finally resolved and she can
eventually marry her beloved. Thus, although Violas disguise offers her certain
liberties an Elizabethan woman could never have enjoyed under normal
circumstances, her disguise nevertheless mainly makes her suffer and moreover it
does not lead to the comedys happy ending. This is also the reason why Jean Howard
argues that Violas properly feminine subjectivity (1994: 113) makes her
masculine attire non-threatening ()107 for the Elizabethan social order.
In As You Like It Shakespeare introduces Rosalind, who disguises as
Ganymede because Rosalind and Celia also believe that travelling is too dangerous for
them:
ROSALIND:
CELIA:

Alas, what danger will it be to us,

Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
Ill put myself in poor and mean attire,
And with a kind of umber smirch my face.
The like do you, so shall we pass along
And never stir assaillants.108 (I.3 l.107-113)

106

Traub Valerie, The Homoerotics of Shakespearean Comedy in Chedgzoy p.144

Neely Carol Thomas, Lovesickness, Gender, and Subjectivity in Callaghan p.286
108
Shakespeare William, As You Like It
107

107

As You Like It

When they leave the court, Celia makes an appropriate prediction about their future
lives:
CELIA:

[] Now go we in content,
To liberty, and not to banishment. (I.3 l.136-137)

Rosalinds freedom instantly becomes obvious once they arrive in Arden although at
first when the two of them arrive in Arden, the woman within wants to weep, as
Rosalind did in the scene following her banishment, but Ganymede scorns to do so:
Doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat (II.iv.6).109 Rosalind,
however, soon enjoys her newly-found freedom which consists in giving advice to her
love-sick suitor Orlando. Indeed, she promises him to heal him from his ailment
provoked by unrequited love by using the following method:
ROSALIND:

[] He was to
imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him every
day to woo me. At which time would I, being but a
moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable,
longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow,
inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion
something, and for no passion truly anything, [] (III.2 l.392-398)
[]
would now like him, now loathe him, then entertain
him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit
at him, that I drave my suitor from his mad humour
of love to a living humour of madness, which was to
forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a
nook merely monastic. (III.2 l.400-404)

Rosalinds plan will obviously allow her to be close to Orlando and to pretend that
they are a couple. She will also be able to test his love, patience and endurance. What
is more, as Ganymede she even manages to make Orlando say that he loves her. One
realises that in her disguise Rosalind has a lot of power over Orlando as he will do
whatever she tells him to do. Indeed, she would never be able to achieve this strength
in her normal role as a woman.
In the previously mentioned extract from III.2, Rosalind, who is wearing her male
disguise, still behaves very lady-like as Carol Thomas Neely emphasises:
Du Laurens, for example, advises accusing the lovers mistress of being light, inconstant,
foolish, devoted to varietie, mocking and laughing to scorne that this griefe and corrasive,
disdainful as not acknowledging his deserts (1597: 122-3). Ganymede improvises on this
scheme by performing the stereotypical womans role the misogynists construct; [] By
playing these roles, he/she takes some of the sting out of misogynist claims.110

109
110

Dusinberre Juliet, Women and Boys Playing Shakespeare in Callaghan p.256

Neely in Callaghan p.293

108

Moreover, Stanley Wells points out that the woman in Rosalind is never totally
suppressed by her male disguise:
She laughs at Orlandos romantic attitudes, at his abusing of young plants with carving
Rosalind on their barks; she declares love merely a madness, denies the possibility of dying
for love, is tremulously aware of loves transience. Yet her love seems as deep and genuine,
and in its ways as romantic, as any Orlando could wish. Aware of the humorous aspects of
love, of the exaggerations of lovers, she is aware too of loves potency. She seems sometimes
to laugh lest she cry; her awareness of the possibility of folly becomes a kind of selfawareness born of experience, her boyish disguise a means of revealing while at the same time
controlling her emotion. She also is too wise to woo peaceably, but her feelings spill over
when she is alone with Celia: O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how
many fathom deep I am in love. But it cannot be sounded. My affection hath an unknown
bottom, like the Bay of Portugal. And in this mood even she is not immune from deflating
comment: Ill tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. Ill go find a shadow
and sigh till he come. (4.1.195-8, 205-8).111

Indeed, Rosalind manages to preserve her female identity although she is wearing
male clothes. One may wonder why Shakespeare decided to represent Ganymede as a
man who behaves very ladylike. As a matter of fact, Shakespeares contemporaries
considered outward markers of identity such as clothes and behaviour as extremely
important. A cross-dressed woman was surely very amusing in a play but the disguise
could not be maintained indefinitely. Elizabethans believed that such a subversion of
the social order would lead to total chaos and that is why the playwright reminds the
audience that a woman wearing mens clothes is still a woman. This also becomes
obvious when Rosalind faints after she has heard about Orlandos trial with the
lioness. Nevertheless, the most striking aspect about Rosalind being disguised as
Ganymede is how powerful she is compared to the other characters of the play:
As the central intelligence of her play, Rosalind judges and assists the other lovers. She
reprimands Jaques for his cultivation of melancholy, attacks Phebe for her disdain, tries to
show Silvius the folly of idolatry, and finally arranges for the marriage of Phebe and Silvius.
In the central scenes of the play, she educates Orlando, forcing him to include a sense of
reality in his idealistic vision of love and women.112

As the previous quotation indicates Rosalind as Ganymede gives good advice to

Phebe, which Wells comments as follows:
It is Rosalind, too, who reproves Phoebe for her obstinate refusal of Silviuss love:
But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good mans love;
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can. You are not for all markets.
(3.5.58-61)
This is not moon-sickness, but it shows a healthy appreciation of the value of love.113

111

Wells p.175
Dusinberre pp.95-96
113
Wells pp.175-176
112

109

Surprisingly for a female character invented by an Early Modern playwright,

Rosalinds general view of love and life is neither romantic nor idealised but very
down to earth. Although Rosalind occasionally shows signs of romantic love as for
example when she panics because Orlando is late, she mostly tries to convince the
other characters to adopt a realistic view of marriage. The following lines reflect one
of Rosalinds attempts to persuade Orlando to accept her personal ideas about love
and marriage:
ROSALIND:

[] No, no, Orlando;

men are April when they woo, December when they
wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky
changes when they are wives. (IV.1 l.138-141)

Rosalind warns Orlando of a kind of love that is built on artifice alone and instead she
speaks in favour of a kind of love that will be able to survive the struggles of everyday
life, caused by jealousy and mood swaps for instance. We also realise that Rosalind
mentions the dangers of marriage to Orlando, which Callaghan interprets as follows:
Marriage demands economic arrangements, she warns penniless Orlando: a snail is an apt
wooer because he carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you make a
woman (IV.i.52-3). It leads to childbearing: let her never nurse her child herself, for she will
breed it like a fool (IV.i.171-2). And it presages the cuckolds horns. Rosalinds italicised
commonplaces remind both the couple and the plays audience that marriage does not
necessarily provide a cure for love, produce a stable gender hierarchy, or lead to a happy
ending.114

Rosalinds realistic view of marriage is rather untypical of an Elizabethan woman

because in Early Modern England women were believed to be romantic, a character
trait that would easily turn them into the victims of their own passions. However,
Rosalinds disguise gives her the necessary strength to express her unconventional
attitude, so she can experience a certain power that was normally out of an
Elizabethan womans reach. The fact that Shakespeares female protagonist is wooing
a man instead of waiting to get wooed by him can be considered a likely risk of
upsetting the Elizabethan social order. Shakespeare, the playwright who was mindful
to satisfy his audience, could not provide Rosalind with complete liberty but he was
also forced to show the limitations of her disguise. After all, pretending to be a man
does not allow her to consummate her relationship with Orlando and thus her crossdressing does not eventually lead to the resolution of her initial problem.

114

Neely in Callaghan p.293

110

Nonetheless, the end of the comedy can be regarded as satisfying for an Elizabethan
audience because as soon as Rosalind stops wearing her disguise, she suddenly seems
to be a very different character, an evidence which makes Neely point out that:
the decorous and nearly silent bride who appears in the final scene of As You Like It contains
no traces of former Ganymedes or former Rosalinds.115

The fact that Rosalind is eventually represented as the ideal Elizabethan bride
indicates that at the end of the play the Elizabethan social order has been restored.
However, Shakespeare decided to let Rosalind speak the epilogue, which is very
unusual for Early Modern plays as the epilogue was normally spoken by a male
character. Consequently, one realises that Rosalind took over several roles in the
course of the play:
She is the peevish boy with whom Phoebe falls in love, even when most feelingly acting the
girl-hero in love; as Ganymede deriding the ways of woman, she is the boy-actor mincing and
lisping his way through his womans part.116

Jardine continues by claiming that in her epilogue Rosalind once more shows a bit of
all her personalities that became evident in the course of the play:
ROSALIND:

[] If I
were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had
beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and
breaths that I defied not. And I am sure, as many as
have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths will
for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. (Epilogue)

With the help of Rosalinds final words Shakespeare emphasises that although the
social order has eventually been restored, Rosalind remains a powerful character who
might still make proof of her extraordinary resources in her future life as a married
woman.
Portia, the heroine of The Merchant of Venice, disguises as Balthasar, a man of
law. In the course of the play the readers get aware of the fact that Portia has two
reasons to cross-dress. First of all, she officially claims that the reason for her
departure from Belmont in mens clothes consists in helping Antonio, her husbands
best friend, who was not able to pay back the money he had borrowed from Shylock
and who was consequently taken to court. In III.4 Portia announces an additional
reason for her disguise, namely experiencing the power to behave as freely as a man:

115
116

Neely in Callaghan p.295

Jardine p.20

111

The Merchant of
Venice

PORTIA:

When we are both accoutered like young men

Ill prove the prettier fellow of the two,
And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
And speak between the change of man and boy
With a reed voice, and turn to mincing steps
Into a manly stride, and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint lies
How honourable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died.
I could not do withal. Then Ill repent,
And wish for all that that I had not killed them;
And twenty of these puny lies Ill tell,
That man shall swear I have discontinued school
Above a twelvemonth. I have within my mind
A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks
Which I will practise.117 (III.4 l.63-78)

Portias previous words depict her as quite a self-assured woman who is aware of
mens usual tricks and who thinks that she is intelligent enough to outsmart the men at
court. Additionally, Portia has to wear a male disguise because she is going to pretend
to be a man of law, and lawyers as well as judges were typical male professions to
which Elizabethan women had no access.
The third reason for her trip in disguise relies on her desire to find out if her husband
is loyal to her. Alan Sinfield comments on Portias decision as follows:
However, Portia plays a harder game than Rosalind and Viola. She doesnt disguise herself, as
they do, to evade hetero-patriarchal pressures, but to test and limit her husband. When
disguised as a boy she does not, Geary observes, play androgynous games with other
characters or the audience.118

Consequently, the reader perceives Portia as a woman who takes her male role very
seriously. This is also obvious in the previously mentioned lines from III.4, in which
Portia comments on how she sees herself in mens clothes. Her words used in these
lines clearly emphasise that she is looking forward to playing a mans role. That is
why it can be claimed that she already adopts typical male behaviour when she brags
that she could not do withal (l.72) when ladies passionately loved her. Also later in
the court scene Portia obviously takes delight in her male role, which is shown by the
fact that she is the only character present in this scene who actually dares to become
active. Readers might not be very impressed by the actual words of Portias famous
Mercy Speech but they are most likely very surprised that a noble lady, who grew up
in a protected environment at court, is brave enough to speak the truth even when she

117
118

Shakespeare William, The Merchant of Venice

Sinfield Alan, How to Read the Merchant of Venice in Chedgzoy p.129

112

is confronted with the evil. As a matter of fact, all the male characters surrounding
Portia in this scene are just helpless while Portia is the only person who has enough
courage to act against Shylock. Of course we can doubtlessly claim that her male
disguise gives her the necessary power to speak up in court. In this context it is
legitimate to point out that Portia takes advantage of a unique chance because as an
Elizabethan woman she would normally never have had the opportunity to speak in
favour of the accused at a court. As a consequence, the playwright manages to
illustrate that taking on a different persona actually allows Portia to alter her entire
personality. This change provides her with a freedom she could not previously enjoy,
namely actively interfering at court, a typically male domain.
It is important to notice that Portia uses the law to defend Antonio but at the same
time she goes against the conventions of Elizabethan society by taking on a male
disguise, an act which can be regarded as a risk of disturbing the Elizabethan social
order. Moreover, in the course of the trial scene Portia makes proof of her extreme
cleverness, a characteristic which was also considered untypical of women. Her
smartness is especially well mirrored in the way she reveals different aspects of the
bond between Antonio and Shylock in order to defend the accused:
PORTIA:

This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood.

The words expressly are a pound of flesh.
Take then thy bond. Take thou thy pound of flesh.
But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are by the laws of Venice confiscate
Unto the state of Venice. (IV.1 l.303-309)

The previous extract gives the audience the impression that Portia will eventually be
able to outsmart Shylock because it will be impossible for him to cut a pound of flesh
out of Antonio without him starting to bleed. She definitely beats Shylocks
cleverness when she expresses the following lines:
PORTIA:

It is enacted in the laws of Venice,

If it be proved against an alien
That by direct or indirect attempts
He seek the life of any citizen,
The party gainst the which he doth contrive
Shall seize one half his goods; the other half
Comes to the privy coffer of the state,
And the offenders life lies in the mercy
Of the Duke only, gainst all other voice
In which predicament I say thou standst,
For it appears by manifest proceeding
That indirectly, and directly too,
Thou hast contrived against the very life
Of the defendant, and thou hast incurred

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The danger formerly by me rehearsed.

Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke. (IV.1 l.345-360)

The fact that Portia makes Shylock lose all his money and forces him to convert to
Christianity hurts him significantly. At this instant Portia experiences a real success
because she makes Shylock suffer badly and simultaneously she manages to save
Antonios life.
Shakespeares female protagonist is also successful in her private life because she
succeeds in testing her husbands fidelity. At first, one might believe that Bassanios
lack of loyalty towards her becomes evident when he is eventually willing to give his
ring to the young man of law as a recompense although he had promised her never to
give it away:
PORTIA

(to Bassanio) And for your love Ill take this ring from you,
Do not draw back your hand. Ill take no more,
And you in love shall not deny me this. (IV.1 l.424-426)

However, the previous lines mirror the fact that first of all, Bassanio had no other
choice but to give his ring to the disguised Portia. Secondly, his lack of loyalty allows
her to teach him a lesson about honesty and keeping promises at the end of the play.
When they are reunited, Portia blames Bassanio for not wearing her ring anymore:
PORTIA:

If you had known the virtue of the ring,

Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honour to contain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there so much unreasonable,
If you had pleased to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
Nerissa teaches me what to believe.
Ill die fort but some woman had the ring. (V.1 l.199-208)

Portias lines indicate that she tries to awaken Bassanios bad conscience by blaming
him for ignoring her love for him as well as by pretending her jealousy. Then,
however, she takes out a letter which eventually reveals the entire truth:
PORTIA:

Here is a letter. Read it at your leisure.

It comes from Padua, from Bellario.
There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,
Nerissa there her clerk. [] (V.1 l.267-279)

Finally, Portia even manages to outsmart the men present in this scene without
wearing her male disguise. This success proves that she is still superior to her male
counterparts and she also still appears to enjoy a certain freedom at the end of the

114

comedy. However, Portias final words might make the audience change their view of
the female protagonists superiority:
PORTIA:

Let us go in,
And charge us there upon intergatories,
And we will answer all things faithfully. (V.1 l.297-299)

In this extract Portia shares more common features with the typical submissive
Elizabethan woman than with the powerful heroine wearing mens clothes represented
earlier in the play. In this context one might assume that Portias inferiority at the end
of the comedy is Shakespeares attempt to satisfy the Elizabethan spectators, who
most likely expected their social hierarchy to be restored in the final scene.
Nevertheless, the fact that Portias husband was taught a lesson in loyalty between
husband and wife indicates that the freedom Portia experienced in her male disguise
also provided her with a certain self-assurance that allows her to feel more
independent at the end.
It is very likely that Shakespeares aim consisted in pointing out that Portia managed
to gain more freedom in the course of the play. The reason why he made her express
these final words was most likely a device to satisfy his contemporary audience which
he did not estimate as emancipated enough to accept an absolutely free and powerful
woman.
To conclude one may claim that male disguise allows Shakespeares female
characters to experience a certain freedom of speech and action. However, as soon as
they give up their disguise, they seem to be trapped in their traditional restricted
positions in patriarchal society again. Nevertheless, modern readers realise that
Shakespeare opted for this change in womens behaviour because his contemporaries
would by no means have approved of an ending which showed a free woman feeling
superior to her male counterparts as it would have completely upset the Elizabethan
social order. However, in the previously discussed comedies Shakespeare always
showed a slight change in the respective womens behaviour, which can be interpreted
as an indication of the fact that the experiences they made while being cross-dressed
have provided them with more personal freedom.

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3.7 Womens Wit as a Tool to Gain More Freedom

In this last chapter of Section Two the focus lies on an additional means which
allowed Shakespeares female protagonists to reach a certain freedom of speech,
namely their wit, a characteristic which is by far less cruel than some of their actions.
It needs to be pointed out that the expression wit can actually have different
meanings in relation to Shakespearean female characters. First of all, wit stands for
the protagonists intelligence and cleverness. Secondly, it refers to their
resourcefulness that becomes obvious in their abilities to plan certain actions as well
as their capacities to put these plans into action. One also needs to emphasise that
these different aspects of wit are obvious in the characters words as well as in their
deeds.
As it has already been stated in this dissertation, the Elizabethans strongly believed
that the perfect woman should never speak out in public, an idea which is emphasised
by the following statement:
Guazzos Civile Conversation, reaffirms the need for female silence, And therefore silence in
a woman is greatly commended: for it setteth her foorth muche, and maketh her thought to be
verie wise.119

The reason why women were preferred to remain silent is linked to Elizabethan mens
fear that women could confuse their social hierarchy if their wit turned out to be
superior to mens wit. In other words, Elizabethan men were scared that women
would be more intelligent than them and could consequently outsmart them:
Whether or not middle-class women in Shakespeares time shared Queen Elizabeths
scholarship, they partook of the wit which is the side product of education, that child of prose
and logic which is to the highly cultivated and self-aware society as poetry is to the primitive
culture. Elizabeths apocryphal sharpness made its own comment on the conviction that wit,
the fruit of learning, was a masculine attribute. Wit contradicts the male ideal of the silent
submissive woman because its nature is combative and verbal. Leonato fears that Beatrice will
not get a husband if shes so sharp-tongued. Defying one set of standards for women, wit
inevitably suggests defiance of another the witty woman is often accused of loose living.120

In Shakespeares comedies the audience can witness Rosalind in As You Like It, Kate
in The Taming of the Shrew and Portia in The Merchant of Venice who explicitly
make proof of their wit.

119
120

Friedman p.100
Dusinberre p.227

116

In As You Like It, Rosalind is depicted as an extremely active, eloquent and

clever character. Especially when she is disguised as Ganymede in Arden, she
repeatedly talks about womens wit and cleverness. She indicates, for instance, that a
womans thought runs before her actions. (IV.1 l.132) In the same scene Rosalind
also characterises women as so wise and witty that nothing can stop them from
expressing their witty thoughts:
ROSALIND:

The wiser, the waywarder. Make the doors upon a

womans wit, and it will out at the casement. Shut
that, and twill out at the key-hole. Stop that, twill fly
with the smoke out at the chimney. (IV.1 l.153-156)

No matter how hard a man tries to suppress a womans intelligence, she will
obviously always find a way to use her cleverness. In other terms, women will always
be intellectually superior to their male counterparts.
Rosalind also points out that if a woman was not wise, she would not even be smart
enough to behave badly. As a consequence, one can deduce that the wiser the woman,
the wilder she is. This perception corresponds to Early Modern mens fears that witty
women are difficult to control.
A few lines later Rosalind tells Orlando once more that women are indeed cleverer
than men:
ROSALIND:

[] You
shall never take her without her answer unless you
take her without her tongue. O, that woman that
cannot make her fault her husbands occasion, let her
never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like
a fool. (IV.1 l.162-167)

Rosalind points out that every woman who is capable of speaking will answer back to
men. Furthermore, she emphasises that a woman who does not know how to make her
own discretions look like her husbands fault is no real woman. In this context one
realises that mens fears were indeed justified because women were, at least in
Rosalinds eyes, intellectually more alert than men and thus outsmarted them. It is
significant that Shakespeare makes Rosalind express these words while she is
disguised as a man. Keeping her previous words in mind, one can assume that her
disguise allows Rosalind to become active. Consequently, her decision to cross-dress
can be interpreted as a clear sign of her cleverness. On the other hand, one may
wonder why she provides her future husband with this information about women. Is it
really such a good idea to depict wives in this rather negative way to an unmarried
man? Will this kind of information not encourage him to act more severely and to

117

As You Like It

suppress his future wife even more? Yet it is very unlikely that Rosalinds aim
consists in making Orlando realise that it is useless to try to control and suppress a
woman because she will find a way to break free anyway. Thus, a husband might
eventually allow his wife more freedom if he is aware that he is helpless against a
womans cleverness. In this case Rosalinds speech about womens wit might provide
her with more freedom once she is married to Orlando.
The Taming of the
Shrew

From the beginning, Katherine, the female protagonist of The Taming of the
Shrew, is referred to as a shrew and consequently as a woman who does not
correspond to the Elizabethan ideal. In the very first scene of this comedy Hortensio
and Gremio clearly state their opinion of Kate:
GREMIO:
HORTENSIO:

[] Shes too rough for me.121 (I.1 l.55)

[]
[]No mates for you
Unless you were of gentler, milder mould. (I.1 l.59-60)

These two male characters express a very patronising attitude towards Kate because
they refer to her in the third person instead of addressing her directly. This behaviour
can be explained in two different ways. First of all, it is possible that both men are
intimidated by her strong character. They might be afraid of how she would talk to
them or of what she would say if they addressed her directly. Another explanation for
the mens patronising way of referring to Kate is that they cannot feel any respect for
a shrew, or in other words for a woman who does not behave the way an Elizabethan
woman was expected to behave.
What is more interesting, however, is the reason why the other characters in the play
consider her a shrew. Is Kate really behaving so disrespectfully or is her behaviour
acceptable after all? A closer look at her first encounter with Petruccio allows the
audience to witness her actual behaviour while she is facing a suitor:
PETRUCCIO:
KATHERINE:

Good morrow, Kate, for thats your name, I hear.

Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing.
They call me Katherine that do talk of me. (II.1 l.182-184)

Kate immediately contradicts Petruccio by telling him that her actual name is
Katherine. Her reaction shows that she has her own mind and that it will not be easy

121

Shakespeare William, The Taming of the Shrew

118

for a man to woo her. This assumption is even strengthened by their following
discussion in which Kates wit is particularly well reflected in her way of speaking:
PETRUCCIO:
KATHERINE:
PETRUCCIO:
KATHERINE:
PETRUCCIO:

Come, come, you wasp, ifaith you are too angry.

If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
My remedy is then to pluck it out.
Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail.
KATHERINE: In his tongue.
PETRUCCIO: Whose tongue?
KATHERINE: Yours, if you talk of tales, and so farewell.
PETRUCCIO: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again,
Good Kate, I am a gentleman.
KATHERINE: That Ill try.
She strikes him
PETRUCCIO: I swear Ill cuff you if you strike again.
KATHERINE: So may you lose your arms.
If you strike me you are no gentleman,
And if no gentleman, why then, no arms. (II.1 l.209-221)

In this discussion Kate is depicted as very spontaneous and witty as she takes
Petruccios cues to use them against him, a form of behaviour which is very different
from what was expected of the ideal Elizabethan woman. Although Kate even dares to
hit Petruccio, it would be exaggerated to say that she is evil. She is very clever and she
is not willing to be married to a man who cannot match her wit. The way Kate
approaches Petruccio in this scene can be regarded as a test, which should help her
figure out if she could endure a life with this man. Nevertheless, already at this early
stage of the play, Shakespeare also included indications that Kate already considers
Petruccio her equal as far as their wit is concerned:
KATHERINE:
PETRUCCIO:
KATHERINE:

Where did you study all this goodly specch?

It is extempore, from my mother-wit.
A witty mother, witless else her son. (II.1 l.257-259)

These lines also highlight that Petruccio knows how to handle her. By emphasising
that his mother was also witty, he makes clear to Kate that he likes and accepts witty
women. This statement definitely allows him to gain some of her esteem. At the end
of their first encounter Kate blames her father of wishing her to marry a half-lunatic
(II.1 l.282). The readers, however, have already realised that Petruccio is no madman
and so Kates reaction here is just a means she uses to save her face. As a matter of
fact, compared to her usual behaviour, she seems rather calm for somebody who
absolutely does not want to get married. Her calmness allows the spectators to draw
the conclusion that she is meanwhile willing to get married because she has met her
match. Kates decision to calm down at this moment of the play also reflects how

119

witty she actually is. Her decision not to agree to the marriage immediately can also
be interpreted as a result of her wit because it would not be advantageous for her if
Petruccio had the impression that he had already been successful at taming her. In this
case they would indeed no longer be equals but he would be superior to her, which
would be synonymous with a loss of her characteristic strength.
The Merchant of
Venice

In The Merchant of Venice, Portias intervention at court allows the audience

to witness her extraordinary wit. In this context one must not forget that in
Elizabethan times:
Pleading by women, [], was not permitted in any legal setting. Women could be litigants but
they could not be judges, jurors or lawyers. Along with heretics, excommunicants and
criminals, no woman could plead on behalf of someone else before a judge (Stretton 1998:
67).122

Thus, although Portia appears at court dressed like a man, the audience still witnesses
an Elizabethan woman talking in this scene. That is why it is very surprising to see
that Portia exactly knows how the law of her society works although women usually
had no access to law at all. Portias ease in dealing with matters of law indicates her
immense intelligence and good education. In her role as a legal expert she is the one
who takes the decision at the end of the trial. This absolute power fits Portias
character because she is the only character present at court who also has the strength
to successfully use this absolute power. If we compare Portia to the male characters of
the play, we realise that none of them equals Portia in her ability to outsmart Shylock.
Whereas Graziano utters anti-Semitic comments, Bassanio fails pleading for Antonio.
Moreover, Antonio is so depressed that he is not actively involved in his defence. The
audience even gets the impression that Antonio wishes to get executed so that this trial
will finally come to an end:
ANTONIO:

I am a tainted wether of the flock,

Meetest for death. []123 (IV.1 l.113-114)

Portia is doubtlessly the only character who has the necessary strength to stop
Shylocks unfair business. This strength becomes especially evident in Portias speech
of mercy in which her wit is reflected very clearly. At first sight, Portia seems to
follow the typical procedure of asking Shylock to show mercy for Antonio by

122

Heard Rachel, Caught in medias res Female Intercession, Regulation and Exchange in Richards
Jennifer and Thorne Alison (eds.), Rhetoric, Women and Politics in Early Modern England, p.51
123
Shakespeare William, The Merchant of Venice

120

explaining that showing mercy is beneficial for the person who shows it as well as for
the person who receives it:
PORTIA:

[] It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. (IV.1 l.183-184)

Yet she also reveals her very witty mind because she is not only able to show feelings
but she mainly uses clever reasoning to convince Shylock. In fact, she first points out
that showing mercy would improve his reputation and secondly it would even elevate
him to a God-like being:
PORTIA:

[] It becomes
The thrond monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway.
It is enthrond in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself,
And earthly power doth then show likest Gods
When mercy seasons justice. [] (IV.1 l.185-194)

Portia also warns him that not showing any mercy may eventually lead to his own
damnation:
PORTIA:

That in the course of justice none of us

Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that some prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. [] (IV.1 l.196-199)

Consequently, the actual goal of Portias speech consists in persuading Shylock to

save himself before she is going to outsmart him with her strong legal arguments.
Portias wit, however, is not only obvious in her words but it is also reflected in her
actions like for example in her decision to play a trick on her and Nerissas husbands
with the help of their wedding rings, which the men were forced to give to her when
she was disguised as a man of law. Before they see their husbands again in Belmont,
she tells Nerissa the following:
PORTIA:

[] I warrant we shall have old swearing

That they did give the rings away to men.
But well outface them, and outswear them too. (IV.2 l.15-17)

In these lines Portias wit is documented once more although she is not as serious in
this scene as she was at court. Indeed, at the end of the play she rather uses her wit to
have some fun on their husbands expense. That is also why both women really enjoy
Bassanio and Grazianos embarrassment when they try to explain to their suspicious

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wives that they have given their rings away to men. When the truth is revealed at the
end of the comedy, the overall atmosphere is very positive. Yet one may wonder how
Bassanio and Graziano will deal with their wives, who have shown that as far as their
wit is concerned, they are superior to their husbands. As a matter of fact, Bassanio
might have chosen the correct casket but apart from that, he will never be able to
match his wife in her cleverness. This impression becomes predominant so that the
following question arises among the spectators: How will a woman with an
intellectual outfit like Portia cope in a relationship with a man who is intellectually
inferior to her?
To conclude, Shakespeares heroines way of speaking as well as their actions
definitely prove that they possess wit of the highest calibre. In the comedies wit
provides women with more power so that they become active and enjoy more
freedom. Nonetheless, one must not forget that these women belonged to Elizabethan
society and thus they had to keep their cleverness under control in order to prevent
upsetting their societys social order. Depicting numerous witty women allowed
Shakespeare to suggest that his female characters are surely intelligent enough to find
a clever way to gain more freedom without disrespecting their societys rules and
traditions.
The fact that Shakespeares comic women were attributed the right to speak
openly classifies Shakespeare as an Elizabethan playwright who was ahead of his
time. Nowadays it is generally assumed that in Early Modern society silent women
were regarded as the paragons because talkativeness was synonymous with a social
vice. This belief, which had its origins in the idea that womens talk was generally
shallow, was also shared by numerous Elizabethan playwrights. Indeed, one could
easily be misled into regarding Ben Jonson as a fervent representative of this
misogynist attitude. This belief is, first of all, emphasised by Jonsons choice to entitle
one of his most successful comedies Epicoene or The Silent Woman. Analysing
Jonsons comedies in more detail could once more mislead the readers into drawing
the conclusion that Shakespeares most important rival repeatedly addresses similar
ideas about women as those established by Elizabethan conduct books. In this context,
Sean McEvoy points out that Jonson illustrates a preference for silent women as he

122

had been largely influenced by late medieval and Renaissance folk tales in which the
idea of the ideal silent woman has its origins124.
As a matter of fact, Jonson depicts these female characters in an extremely satirical
light so that the spectators can by no means take the words uttered by Mr Otter when
she addresses her husband for instance seriously. Mrs Otter is obviously a very
talkative woman but on closer inspection her arguments, used to underline her
superiority over her husband, prove to be unsustainable. Thus, one could easily
assume that Jonson managed to express his alleged misogynist attitude by creating
such an unsympathetic female character. However, one must not forget that the male
characters in Jonsons comedies are not less foolish than their female counterparts.
Indeed, Moroses aversion against noise as well as his foolish wish to marry an
absolutely quiet woman reflect that Jonson did not depict his male characters in a
more positive light than his female characters. This recognition leads to the conclusion
that the playwrights aim actually consisted in criticising both men and women, a fact
which no longer allows us to label Jonson as a traditional misogynist.
Whereas in Shakespeares comedies, witty women are eventually successful, Jonsons
female characters do not achieve anything. For instance, Rosalinds lessons on love
and wooing finally allowed her to arrange her own wedding with Orlando and
provided her with the prospect of living in a relationship based on mutual respect as
she has taught her future husband how to treat his wife correctly. Mrs Otter, on the
other hand, does not experience any development in the course of the play but she
remains the same foolish character as depicted at the beginning. This lack of
psychological development in Jonsons characters illustrates that the main aim of his
comedies consists in entertaining his spectators with a satirical representation of their
moral and mental shortcomings. It is obvious that both playwrights outlined their
characters in very different ways. Jonson, who was mainly interested in representing
human misbehaviour, wanted to entertain his spectators by making them laugh while
feeling superior to the characters on stage. Whereas Jonson did not allow his
audiences to identify themselves with his characters but rather created a distance
between them, Shakespeares protagonists offered his spectators examples of
admiration as well as models for imitation. In other terms, in Jonsons comedies life
with its several nasty aspects is depicted as undesirable whereas Shakespeares

124

McEvoy Sean, Op.Cit.,p.78

123

characters gave the playwright the opportunity to illustrate to what extent his
spectators could improve their lives.

124

4 Section Three: The Endings

In this final section the focus lies on the different endings of some of the
previously discussed comedies in order to establish if the female characters have
reached their goals. In other terms, do Shakespeares female protagonists have more
power and freedom at the end than at the beginning of the plays when they were
trapped in apparently hopeless situations? As a matter of fact, having a closer look at
the endings allows you to draw the conclusion that Shakespeares comedies have two
different kinds of endings. Some Shakespearean comedies end with successful female
characters, who managed to break free from their initial hopeless situations. On the
other hand there are also a number of comedies in which the female characters seem
to have reached a certain freedom and power at first sight but their success is not
guaranteed as the womens final situations remain critical.

4.1 Partially Successful Endings

The discussion about the endings of Shakespeares comedies will first be based on
Hermione in The Winters Tale, Hero and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing and
Kate in The Taming of the Shrew. At first sight, these female characters enjoy more
freedom at the end than at the beginning of the play but they have not completely
escaped from their inferior positions yet.
At first sight, one might assume that The Winters Tale has a happy ending
because Hermione can finally leave her hiding place and join her husband, Perdita is

125

The Winters Tale

reunited with Florizel, and Paulina gets married to Camillo after several years of
loneliness.
However, having a closer look at Hermiones situation, doubts about whether she has
really gained more freedom inevitably rise. Of course, she has literally achieved
freedom as she does not have to stay hidden at Paulinas anymore. Additionally,
Leontes finally seems to have accepted the truth about his wifes honesty:
LEONTES:

[] Both your pardons,

That eer I put between your holy looks
My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law
And son unto the King, whom heavens directing
Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,
Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely
Each one demand and answer to his part
Performed in this wide gap of time since first
We were dissevered. Hastily lead away.125 (V.3 l.148-156)

It is surprising that all of a sudden Leontes is willing to forgive his wife and accept his
daughter. His reaction might, however, be explained by overwhelming emotions that
Leontes experiences when he is suddenly reunited with his wife that he believed to
have died a number of years ago.
Yet the problem at the end is that Leontes is represented as a man whose mood and
beliefs change easily. This character trait did not only become obvious when he
suddenly thought that Hermione had cheated on him. In this final scene, his mood
changes also become apparent when he is confronted with the statue representing
Hermione. Although before this scene Leontes still very stubbornly believed that he
had been right to condemn his wife, his opinion of her quickly softens when the
lifelike statue of Hermione is revealed:
LEONTES:

I am ashamed. Does not the stone rebuke me

For being more stone than it? O royal piece!
Theres magic in thy majesty, which has
My evils conjured to remembrance, and
From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
Standing like stone with thee. (V.3 l.38-42)

One can only hope for Hermiones sake that Leontes has really learnt his lesson and
that he will not make the same mistake again. However, given Leontess unstable
personality, there is no real guarantee that Hermione can now enjoy a carefree life at
her husbands side. There is always a risk that his jealousy will be triggered for no
obvious reason and that Hermione will have to suffer from its consequences once

125

Shakespeare William, The Winters Tale

126

more. In this context one may wonder if being released from her hiding place after
several years and returning to Leontes, who hurt her so badly in the past, is really a
return to freedom.
In the final act of Much Ado about Nothing Hero experiences a happy ending.
Indeed, she has become literally free because she no longer has to pretend her own
death. Furthermore, her good reputation has been restored thanks to Borachio, who
admitted that he and his friends played a trick on Claudio and that Hero is still a virgin
after all. Claudios reaction to this confession is illustrated in the following lines:
CLAUDIO:

Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appear

In the rare semblance that I loved at first.126 (V.1 l.243-244)

Apparently Claudio suddenly remembers the love and esteem he had felt for Hero
before he heard about her betrayal. As a matter of fact, he feels very ashamed and so
he asks Leonato what he should do in order to apologise. Leonatos answer to this
question is as follows:
LEONATO:

[] but I pray you both

Possess the people in Messina here
How innocent she died, and if your love
Can labour aught in sad invention,
Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb
And sing it to her bones, sing it tonight.
Tomorrow morning come you to my house,
And since you could not be my son-in-law,
Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter,
Almost the copy of my child thats dead
And she alone is heir to both of us.
Give her the right you should have givn her cousin,
And so dies my revenge. (V.1 l.272-284)

The fact that Claudio accepts to write an epitaph in which he openly admits that Hero
was innocent as well as his decision to read it aloud every year can be interpreted as a
sign of his true love for Hero. However, his willingness to accept Leonatos niece as
his wife is more difficult to understand. How can somebody, who has just sworn his
love for his beloved as well as his sadness about her death, marry another woman?
Does he really just accept Leonatos offer out of guilt? Does his decision not rather
reflect that the love he has sworn to Hero was not so genuine after all?
In this context Hero and Claudios wedding at the end of the play leaves the
audience in doubt. Similarly, in The Winters Tale, it is also doubtful that Hero, who

126

Shakespeare William, Much Ado about Nothing

127

Much Ado about

Nothing

has finally reached her goal, namely the clearance of her name as well as her wedding
with Claudio, really experiences such a happy ending. Hero will spend the rest of her
life in a relationship in which she will be respected and thus be allowed certain
liberties by her husband, only if Claudio has learnt a lesson from the consequences
caused by his false accusations. However, the playwright does not provide the
audience with an absolute guarantee that his heroine will indeed experience these
liberties as Claudios wife. Being aware of the fact that in the play Claudio has
repeatedly changed his views and attitudes unexpectedly, one cannot be sure that Hero
will be absolutely guarded against new accusations.
The ending of Much Ado about Nothing also leaves the readers in doubt about
whether Beatrice, the second female character of this play, can now enjoy more
freedom than before. When Beatrice is eventually united with Benedick, with whom
she fought a real war of wit all along the play, she seems tamed in comparison to her
former behaviour:
BENEDICK:
BEATRICE:
BENEDICK:

A miracle! Heres our own hands against our

hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light, I take
thee for pity.
I would not deny you, but by this good day, I
yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your
life, for I was told you were in a consumption.
(kissing her) Peace, I will stop your mouth. (V.4 l.91-97)

Beatrice, who used to be opposed to marriage, does not contradict Benedick although
he obviously teases her by stating that he only takes her as his wife out of pity.
Moreover, she does not talk back to him when he announces that he will stop her
mouth. It is very surprising that she suddenly behaves in such a tamed way, which is
exactly the opposite of how she used to behave earlier in the play. As a consequence,
the readers get the impression that Benedick has taken over the role of Beatrices
master who controls her witty words. In this context Jardine emphasises that:
When Beatrice [] [is] enclosed in matrimony to provide the play[s] with a happy ending
the sharpness of tongue which has marred [her] courtship is domesticated. Thereafter [her]
active female wit will be accommodated without threat as the scolding which men ruefully
accept as the price of matrimony.127

For a modern audience this ending is evidently not synonymous with a success for
Beatrice because she appears to be inferior to her husband and thus she seems to have
lost a certain freedom she possessed before. However, this ending might also be

127

Jardine p.113

128

interpreted in a more positive light, especially if we put it into its historical context.
As a matter of fact, Beatrice might not have been forced to be tamed by Benedick but
it is probable that she actually took the decision not to relentlessly contradict her
husband because she has realised that Benedick, who equals her in her wit, is the right
partner for her. In this context the comedys ending can be considered a satisfying
ending for an Elizabethan woman because Beatrices life in her patriarchal society
will become easier if she behaves well. Consequently, her husband enables her to
accept a lifestyle according to the Elizabethan behavioural code. In other terms, being
married to her equal in wit also provides her with a certain freedom as she no longer
feels the need to have arguments with men who consider themselves wittier than her.
Kate, Shakespeares most famous shrew, experiences an ending similar to
Beatrice's in Much Ado about Nothing. In the final scene of The Taming of the Shrew
the audience has the impression that Kate has turned into an ideal, obeying
Elizabethan woman whereas her sister Bianca, who before her wedding corresponded
to the well-behaved Elizabethan girl, has become more stubborn and thus less like the
ideal Elizabethan wife. This change in their personalities is mirrored for example by
the fact that Kate comes as soon as Petruchio calls her, unlike Bianca, who refuses to
join her husband when he tells her to join him. Furthermore, Kates final soliloquy
also clearly reflects that her personality has changed. First, she explains that a
womans beauty is spoiled if she constantly disobeys her husband. She continues by
stating that a wife has to obey her husband because as her superior, he works hard and
even occasionally risks his life so that she can enjoy a comfortable life:
KATHERINE:

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience,
Too little payment for so great a debt. (V.2 l.151-159)

Kates newly acquired view that a woman has to be thankful to her husband and
consequently has to obey him entirely corresponds to how Elizabethans conceived
ideal female behaviour.
KATHERINE:

Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,

Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts

129

The Taming of the

Shrew

Should well agree with our external parts?

Come, come, you froward and unable worms,
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husbands foot,
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.128 (V.2 l.141-184)

Finally, Katherine states that her behaviour and personality have changed and that she
is willing to accept her status as her husbands inferior. These are obviously no longer
the words of a shrew but rather those expressed by a docile woman who corresponds
to the Elizabethan ideal.
Inevitably the spectators wonder who of these two sisters has eventually achieved
more freedom in her marriage. Is it Bianca, who obviously follows her own will, or is
it rather Kate, who follows her husbands will without contradicting him? A modern
spectator would intuitively claim that Bianca enjoys more freedom than her sister as
her husband is not able to control and command her as efficiently as Petruchio does
with Kate.
Lisa Hopkins in her work entitled Beginning Shakespeare uses a quotation from
Newman that explains that Kates soliloquy quoted above can also be interpreted in a
completely different way:
No speech in the play has been more variously interpreted than Kates final speech of
womens submission. In a recent essay on the Shrew, John Bean has conveniently assigned to
the two prevailing views the terms revisionist for those who would take Kates speech as
ironic and her subservience as a pretense, a way of living peaceably in patriarchal culture but
with an unregenerate spirit, and the anti-revisionists who argue that farce is the plays
governing genre and that Kates response to Petruchios taming is that of an animal
responding to the devices of a skilled trainer. Bean himself argues convincingly for a
compromise position which admits the background of depersonalizing farce unassimilated
from the plays fabliau sources, but suggests that Kates taming needs to be seen in terms of
romantic comedy, as a spontaneous change of heart such as those of the later romantic
comedies. (pp.96-97)129

Indeed, several critics believe that Shakespeare had a very emancipated view of Kate
as the following extract from Juliet Flemings essay entitled The Ladies Shakespeare
points out:

128
129

Shakespeare William, The Taming of the Shrew

Hopkins pp.84-85

130

The other sex if so they may still be called have long complained that his women, however
glorious, are too subservient to the old enemy for these later days, as if he did not know what
times were coming for women. Gentlemen, he knew, but he had to write with the knowledge
that if he was too advanced about Woman his plays would be publicly burned in the garden of
the Stationers Hall. So he left a cipher, not in the text, where everybody has been looking for
them, but in the cunning omission of all stage directions, and women, as he had hoped, have
had the wit to read it aright, with the result that there is to be another edition, called
appropriately The Ladies Shakespeare. For the first time on any stage, some fortunate
actress, without uttering one word, but by the use of silent illuminating business, is to show
us the Shrew that Shakespeare drew.130

Juliet Fleming continues by explaining that Katherine was actually fooling Petruccio
from the very beginning. For instance, Katherine accepted to be carried off by
Petruccio before the wedding because otherwise there would not have been any
marriage feast as Katherines father was actually too poor to organise one. In
Flemings eyes, Katherine had the impression that she was tamed by her husband but
she had realised beforehand that she was forced to accept certain inconveniencies in
order to be able to eventually enjoy more freedom.
Even already as early as in 1885 M. Leigh-Noel, in a talk given to the New
Shakespeare Society, imagined Kate and Petruchios marriage as follows:
we would think it was a very happy [marriage], and that in time Katherine . . . having learned
the secret of making her lord imagine that he was the master, while she was really directing
everything he did . . . would prove to have tamed Petruchio, rather than he to have subdued her
[].131

One could draw the conclusion that if patriarchy is held responsible for the happy
endings of the tragedies, then it must be equally responsible for the happy endings of
the comedies [], which are also brought about in patriarchal worlds . . . It seems
evident, then, that patriarchy cannot have any casual connection to misery.132 In other
words, it is indeed possible for comic female protagonists to experience happy
endings. Even if they belong to a patriarchal society, they are nonetheless able to
achieve at least a certain degree of freedom and independence.

4.2 Successful Endings

The final focus of this thesis lies on the endings of Twelfth Night, The
Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor and As You Like It. These comedies

130

Fleming Juliet, The Ladies Shakespeare, in Callaghan p.3

Fleming in Callaghan p.14
132
Hopkins Lisa, Op.Cit., p.150
131

131

are characterised by female protagonists having successfully achieved more freedom

as they have managed to break free from their initial hopeless situations. Having a
closer look at such plays, one realises that these happy endings are frequently
achieved by the female protagonists themselves.
Twelfth Night

However, the successful ending of Twelfth Night is not caused by the heroines
themselves. Mihoko Suzuki suggests that the playwright might have preferred such an
ending in order to please the Queen as well as her court:
Twelfth Night, which may have been performed at Elizabeths court, needed to be circumspect
in the way it presented a patriarchys anxiety about the unruly woman, especially since
Elizabeth, like Olivia, came to power through the deaths of both a father and a brother, and
was wary, again like Olivia, of coming under the control of a husband as her sister Mary had
done. In this case, the comic convention of woman on top cannot be dismissed as merely a
carnivalesque inversion, because a woman actually occupied the throne (see Davis 1975). If
Elizabeth felt that Shakespeares comedies attempted to discipline her into the position of a
wife, her presence in the audience also must have had a shaping effect on the form of
Shakespearean comedy.133

The positive ending of Twelfth Night allowed Shakespeare to express his esteem for
the Queen and his approval of her reign. One cannot be entirely sure of course if the
playwright chose this kind of ending out of his conviction that women are totally
acceptable as powerful beings and mens superiors, but at least Shakespeares
comedies most likely had an impact on how his contemporaries conceived women in
general. Although women were by no means accepted as mens equals in Elizabethan
time, Shakespeares comedies might at least have encouraged women to believe in
their strength. As a consequence, one notices a similarity between the way
Shakespeares female protagonists influenced Elizabethan women and the way Queen
Elizabeth encouraged women to fight against their inferior positions in society:
Although Allison Heisch has cautioned that Elizabeths rule did not improve the general lot of
women in England, and some women sought to bring Elizabeth down to their own level by
spreading sexual slanders about her, it is nevertheless true that Elizabeth served as a model for
those of her countrywomen who aspired to assert themselves against men.134

Suzuki also points out that Twelfth Night acknowledges a constraining reality for
males through the way it features without chastising a woman dressed as a man, and
another woman who refuses to come under patriarchal control (p.142). Thus, the
ending of Twelfth Night discusses the radical instability in the hierarchical differences

133
134

Suzuki in Callaghan p.141

Suzuki in Callaghan p.141

132

between genders without blaming or punishing these women for their transgressions
against patriarchy [] (Suzuki p.142).
At the end of Twelfth Night Viola is reunited with Orsino not because she simply took
off her disguise but rather thanks to fate. Indeed, only the fact that Sebastian suddenly
appears allows Viola to finally take off her mans clothes. This beneficial accident
also allows the other female protagonist to reach her object of desire as Olivia
eventually marries the real Sebastian. The play also offers a happy ending for Viola as
she is finally united with Orsino. However, one must not forget that although fate
eventually allows her to reveal her true identity, it was Violas previous action in male
disguise, which consisted in teaching Orsino about love and wooing, that made Orsino
feel interested in her. That is why he asks her to change into womens clothes as soon
as her identity has been revealed:
ORSINO:

Give me thy hand,

And let me see thee in thy womans weeds.135 (V.1 l.271-272)

Violas freedom of action and speech eventually made her win Orsinos heart. Juliet
Dusinberre, however, sees this final reunion in a rather negative light:
In the magical reunion of the twins, man and woman, Shakespeare soothes the mind with an
illusion of concord between the masculine and feminine only to dispel the illusion by
separating Viola from the second self with whom she has learnt to live. She is diminished by a
return to the world where she must be Orsinos lady after the momentary freedom of a Twelfth
Night masculinity which restored Natures wholeness.136

It is true that as Orsinos wife Viola will most likely be inferior to him as it was
expected by Elizabethan tradition. However, Suzuki points out that all the female
characters of the play receive what they have desired unlike the male characters:
Twelfth Night allows all the female characters to obtain the object of their desires: Maria
marries Toby, Viola Orsino, and perhaps most important, Olivia weds Sebastian. Olivia says
to Viola disguised as Cesario, I would you were as I would have you be (III.ii.142); and in
fact, her wish comes true in the person of Sebastian. By contrast, Orsino, despite his superior
rank, does not attain Olivia, whom he courts during most of the play, and Malvolio
emphatically does not rise into the ranks of the nobility through a match with Olivia. Orsino,
Toby, and Sebastian will eventually function as objects of the female characters desires.137

By allowing women to reach all their goals and simultaneously forcing the male
characters to assume their inferior position, Shakespeare makes proof of a very
modern attitude towards women. Suzuki, however, makes her readers aware of the

135

Shakespeare William, Twelfth Night

Dusinberre p.267
137
Suzuki in Callaghan p.141
136

133

fact that such an open-minded playwright like Shakespeare was also the victim of
male anxiety. As a matter of fact, Suzuki interprets the avoidance of blaming or
punishing the heroines of Twelfth Night as an indication for an anxiety towards
transgressive women. As a consequence, Shakespeare, who at first sight appears to
have a very innovative attitude towards women and their position in society, still
expresses his fear of women by omitting all kind of punishment for his unruly
heroines because every attempt at chastising them would even have worse
consequences for the plays male characters. Nevertheless, one may also argue that
the lack of punishment is not a sign of male anxiety but Shakespeares way to
emphasise that chastising women is useless as they are witty enough to rebel against
these restrictions, too.
The next focus lies on three comedies, namely The Merchant of Venice, The
Merry Wives of Windsor and As You Like It, which also end satisfactorily for the
heroines but in which they have actively contributed to the positive resolution of the
plays plot.
The Merchant of
Venice

The end of The Merchant of Venice seems to have a perfect finale because
Antonio has been saved and all the lovers are reunited. In this context it is interesting
to analyse if Portia, the most active heroine of the play, also experiences a happy
ending, which would be synonymous with her gaining more freedom. Indeed, Portia
repeatedly made proof of her wit and cleverness at court while being disguised as a
man of law. At that moment she had the freedom to plead at court, a right an
Elizabethan woman was usually denied. Eventually, her intervention during the trial
managed to save Antonio and to punish Shylock severely. In the final scene, which is
set at Belmont, the audience can witness if the freedom that Portia experienced in her
disguise has influenced her personality. At first sight, one gets the impression that
Portia has turned into the ideal Elizabethan woman again:
[] as a wife Bassanio portrays her as an illogical being to whom rings and things are more
important than gratitude. Portia, playing the part of the affronted wife, confirms a vision which
is Bassanios, not her own.138

138

Dusinberre pp.224-225

134

This representation of Portia being interested in material things becomes obvious in

the following lines of the play:
PORTIA:

If you had known the virtue of the ring,

Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honour to contain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there so much unreasonable,
If you had pleased to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge the thing held as a ceremony? (V.1 l.199-206)

Moreover, Portias final lines in the play indicate her inferiority and subjectivity:
PORTIA:

It is almost morning,
And yet I am sure you are not satisfied
Of these events at full. Let us go in,
And charge us there upon intergatories,
And we will answer all things faithfully. (V.1 l.295-299)

In this extract Portia promises to explain everything about the trick she played on her
husband in such a way that he will feel satisfied. In other words, one could assume
that the heroine of this play eventually puts herself in an inferior position by giving up
her previous cleverness and independence and by adopting the position of a docile
wife. This submission seems rather ambiguous as Portia has been represented as very
powerful and autonomous woman in the course of the play whereas at the end
Shakespeare apparently deprives her of some of her power away from her. However,
Dusinberre gives an explanation for Portias submission in the final scene:
[] Portias submission is part of the discrepancy in the play between outward precept and
inward impulse. Portias obedience is an act of courtesy, a ceremonial to the reality of love. In
practice she retains total independence. Submission is a garment she wears as gracefully as her
disguise.139

This explanation makes sense if we put the play in its historical context. In
Elizabethan society women had to stay inferior to men in order to preserve the social
order. Thus, once more, Shakespeare represented his heroine as closer to the ideal
Elizabethan wife than to the modern woman because he was well aware of the fact
that his contemporary audience would not have approved of a female protagonist who
was superior to her husband. Nevertheless, The Merchant of Venice also teaches men
a lesson at the end as Grazianos final words indicate:
GRAZIANO:

Well, while I live Ill fear no other thing

So sore as keeping safe Nerissas ring. (V.1 l.306-307)

139

Dusinberre pp.84-85

135

It becomes evident that Portia and her lady in waiting will enjoy one special privilege
in the future as their husbands will not take their rings off again because they have
learnt that this ring does not only have a materialistic value but it also has a symbolic
worth. By wearing their rings, the men show that they will take care of their wives as
well as respect them. This change in attitude might eventually change the way they
treat their partners. Portia and Nerissas husbands will show their respective wives
more respect than it was usual between an Elizabethan husband and his wife. In this
context Portias apparent submission to her husband mentioned above does not really
make her less independent because most importantly, throughout the play, she has
proved that she is indeed powerful and autonomous, two untypical characteristics of
Elizabethan women.
The Merry Wives
of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor depicts three different women who are busily
involved in putting their different plans into action. As usual for comedies The Merry
Wives of Windsor also has a happy ending. However, to what extent does this happy
ending illustrate that the three female protagonists eventually enjoy more freedom and
power?
The title emphasises the important role the female characters play in this comedy. As
a matter of fact, the plays main plot consists in the conflicts that Mistress Ford and
Mistress Page have to deal with, namely teaching Falstaff that his attempts to seduce
them are ridiculous as well as teaching Master Ford that his jealousy is unfounded.
However, do the resolutions at the end reflect that the events of the play turned the
female characters into winners?
A thorough analysis of Mistress Page, leads to the conclusion that she is only partly a
winner since she did not manage to make her daughter marry her favourite candidate.
Nevertheless, she successfully goes against her husband as Anne has not married the
man of Master Pages choice either. Mistress Pages reaction at the end indicates that
she is not angry about the fact that her wish has not been fulfilled and that Anne
eventually married Fenton:
MISTRESS PAGE:

Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,

Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport oer by a country fire,
Sir John and all.140 (V.5 l.231-235)

140

Shakespeare William, The Merry Wives of Windsor

136

Her words point out that she enjoys her success over her husband. However, instead
of dwelling on it, she just mentions that they should consider everything that
happened before to be fun and a good joke. In this context she appears to be
submissive to her husband because she does not openly celebrate the fact that she
managed to spoil his plan. The explanation for her reaction is that Master Page, as a
typical representative of Shakespeares contemporary audience, would most surely not
accept his wife enjoying her success openly.
Mistress Ford, on the other hand, can be considered a more successful winner
because she finally succeeds in making her husband realise that he has no need to be
jealous of her as she is absolutely loyal to him:
FORD:

Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt.

I rather will suspect the sun with cold
Then thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour stand,
In him that was of late an heretic,
As firm as faith. (IV.4 l.5-9)

One consequently gets the impression that Master Ford will trust his wife more in the
future, an aspect which will provide her with a less restricted life.
The play celebrates the wives newly achieved autonomy at the end but
nonetheless there is only one character who enjoys true freedom, namely Anne. She
actually managed to arrange her wedding with the man she loves even without her
parents consent. In this context one may quote Wellss ideas about Annes final
success:
Anne Page elopes with her favoured suitor, and her new husband, unabashed by the dismay of
his rivals, preaches a brief but pithy sermon on the miseries of enforced marriage and is
forthwith welcomed into the family circle.141

The passage which is referred to by Wells and which is characterised by Fenton

talking against arranged marriages is the following one:
FENTON:

You would have married her, most shamefully,

Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
Thoffence is holy that she hath committed,
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursd hours
Which forcd marriage would have brought upon her. (V.5 l.213-222)

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Wells p.187

137

This speech reflects that Fenton genuinely loves Anne, which is a good starting point
for a respectful relationship. Her parents final acceptance of Fenton eventually
mirrors that they are not upset and that they still accept Anne as well as her new
husband. In this context one may claim that Anne is an absolute winner as she freed
herself from her parents control and she will apparently be able to enjoy a certain
freedom in her marriage with a man who seems to have very modern views on
women. This attitude is illustrated by his belief that women should not be treated as
disrespectful beings in the arranging of marriages for instance.
To conclude, it may be pointed out that the male characters of this play have
learnt a very important lesson: a wife is more likely to be virtuous if trusted to be so
than if compelled to do so, a compulsion which any woman of wit will evade.142 As a
consequence, The Merry Wives of Windsor eventually provides men and women alike
with freedom and satisfaction.
As You Like It

The end of As You Like It can also be considered satisfying for the plays
female protagonist because Rosalind finally reaches what she was longing for during
the entire play, namely her wedding with Orlando. Nevertheless, their wedding leaves
the readers in some doubt. Orlando marries Rosalind on an impulse because after all
he does not really know her. However, it becomes evident that their love has gradually
grown in the course of the play. Rosalinds lessons on wooing and love as well as her
instructions about women in general awakened his interest for Ganymedes
personality. One could even claim that he has fallen in love with the latter, which
explains why he is immediately willing to marry Rosalind once he realises that she
actually deceived him with her disguise. The fact that he says nothing at all on their
wedding day except for If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind. (V.4 l.117),
illustrates that he is completely won over and that Rosalind is even superior to him.
Her superiority also becomes evident in her final plan that leads to the resolution of
the entire problematic situation by arranging several marriages:
ROSALIND:

Keep you your word, O Duke, to give your daughter.

You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter.
Keep your word, Phoebe, that youll marry me,
Or else refusing me to wed this shepherd.
Keep your word, Silvius, that youll marry her

142

Dusinberre p.95

138

If she refuse me; [] (V.5 l.19-24)

In this context one should also emphasise that Rosalind managed to arrange her own
wedding with Orlando:
ROSALIND:

[] If you do
love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries
it out, when your brother marries Aliena shall you
marry her. I know into what straits of fortune she is
driven, and it is not impossible to me, if it appear not
inconvenient to you, to set her before your eyes
tomorrow, human as she is, and without any danger. (V.2 l.59-65)

It was definitely very unusual for Elizabethan women to play such an active role in
arranging other peoples marriages and especially their own. Thus, Rosalinds
previous lines emphasise to what extent she is able to enjoy freedom. A last proof
added by Shakespeare to illustrate that Rosalind definitely has gained power and
freedom at the end of the play is that he decided to let her speak the epilogue although
in Elizabethan plays this was usually done by a male character.
As a consequence, the female characters who actively contributed to the happy
endings of their respective comedies, experience more freedom and power at the end.
Shakespeare illustrates that if women start to act, it will not be in vain. Even if some
heroines do not enjoy total freedom, it can be assumed that this was probably a device
used by the playwright to satisfy his Elizabethan audience. One must not forget that
Shakespeare, who wrote plays for a company, had to attract an audience in order to
make money with his art. Although Shakespeare surely added some innovative and
even revolutionary aspects to his comedies, he also had to respect certain conventions.
In order to please his patriarchal society, it is not surprising that he gave his spectators
the impression that his female characters had to give up a part of their newly gained
freedom. However, the most important message that Shakespeare conveys is that at
some point in the play, his female characters experienced more freedom and this
eventually shows the characters as well as the audience that the female protagonists
situations are not entirely hopeless.
Consequently, Shakespeare can be regarded as quite a modern playwright who
represented his heroines as characters experiencing a lot of freedom and strength.
However, these characteristics were not always depicted openly. The use of this
device results in keeping the Elizabethan audience satisfied as well as maintaining the

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Elizabethan social order. Nevertheless, portraying strong female characters in his

comedies was surely encouraging for the female members in Shakespeares audience,
who the playwright considered intelligent enough to interpret his heroines fights as
well as their eventual successes accurately. In this context Shakespeares emancipated
ideas evident in his comedies can be claimed to be very innovative and revolutionary
for the Early Modern period. It even allows modern readers, who are very likely to
understand the playwrights emancipated view due to their background, to identify
with Shakespeares appealing and likeable comic female characters.
The benefit of Shakespeares innovative characters becomes particularly
evident if they are compared to Jonsons comic characters, who are neither attractive
for Elizabethan women nor for a modern audience. This lack of sympathy for
Jonsons characters is largely due to his failure to create life-like and endearing
characters unlike Shakespeares characters, who possess the typical mysteriousness of
real people. As a matter of fact, Jonsons comic characters are meant to be satirical
constructs. Indeed, a closer analysis of some of Jonsons comic characters reveals that
they are not easy to identify with as they apparently do not have a lot in common with
real human beings. Female spectators are very unlikely to appreciate Jonsons
representation of women and thus accept their inferior position to men without
contesting it. The main difference between the two rivalling playwrights refers to the
fact that Shakespeares female characters undergo a psychological development in the
course of his comedies whereas Jonsons characters, due to the authors interest in
satire, lack such a development. Not allowing a personal psychological progress to
neither his male nor his female protagonists, proves that Jonson is no pure misogynist
as he represents men and women in a similar way.
In Shakespeares comedies women learn their own lessons and they are even able to
teach lessons to other characters, and particularly to their male counterparts. Thus,
Shakespeares comedies prove that his female protagonists manage to grow
psychologically during their process of gaining more personal freedom.
Unlike Shakespearean comic women, Jonsons female characters do not experience a
similar personal progress. Celia, for instance, is sent home to her father at the end of
Volpone. This decision indicates that although Celia might experience some relief
when she is finally freed from those male characters, who tormented her in the course
of the play, she still has not gained absolute freedom because she is forced to continue
living under a mans control. The fact that Celia is represented as a woman with no
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autonomy and no intention to rebel against her position in society, turns her into a
deplorable person. This connotation can be interpreted as a strong contrast to
Shakespeares introduction of lifelike female characters. Indeed, in the course of the
last centuries, his innovative style characterised by modern ideas linked to some
traditional beliefs, has not merely entertained audiences but Shakespeare allowed his
spectators to identify themselves with his likeable and realistic characters. This
evolutionary aspect of Early Modern plays established Shakespeare as a modern
playwright for his time. Simultaneously, the lifelike representation of his characters
also turns Shakespeares plays into timeless works of art that have successfully
outlived the Elizabethan period.

141

142

5 Conclusion

The previous analysis of Shakespeares comic heroines has illustrated that

Shakespeares comedies begin with women being trapped in various apparently
hopeless situations. Next his female protagonists become active and consequently they
elaborate plans in order to escape their hopeless situations and to achieve more
freedom and power. The previous sections have also sustained my contention that
Shakespeare represented two different types of women who behave very differently in
their quest for more freedom. Indeed, characters like for example Portia, Rosalind,
Maria, Helen, Kate or Anne Page are extremely active when they put their plans into
action. They cross-dress, take over mens roles and have an important influence on
their male counterparts so that they can reach their personal aims. On the other hand,
plays like Much Ado about Nothing or The Winters Tale introduce the readers to
female characters who are less actively engaged than the previously mentioned
heroines. Hero and Hermione prefer to stay extremely patient and to wait for other
characters to resolve their hopeless situations. In this context one could get the
impression that these two characters cannot be considered as powerful as
Shakespeares other female heroines. However, these patient characters also make
proof of a lot of power by not reacting immediately but by enduring their difficult
situations until they also eventually achieve more freedom. Evidently Shakespeare
succeeded in representing two different types of women who can both be regarded as
exceptionally resourceful and powerful.
Another feature that these two different types of women have in common is
the fact that they are very likeable characters with whom especially female spectators
can easily identify:

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Shakespeares moral efficacy is usually derived from his capacity, as Montagu put it, to
throw his soul into the body of another man. Or, of course, of another woman. How
Shakespeare attained to such familiarity with the feminine nature it is impossible to say (M.
Leigh-Noel), but Shakespeares reputation as the man who understood women has been
established though contested since Margaret Cavendish remarked his capacity to
Metamorphose from a Man to a Woman in the first critical essay to be published on his
work (in her Sociable Letters (1664)). To those women who loved him, Shakespeares great
gift has usually been said to be his ability to draw women from life: of all the male writers
that ever lived, he has seen most deeply into the female heart; he has most vividly depicted it
in its strength, and in its weakness (M. Cowden Clarke). Such critics have tended to stress the
strengths rather than the weaknesses of Shakespeares women []143

It becomes obvious that Shakespeare had an extraordinary talent to represent women

in a very appealing as well as accurate way. It is also striking to read that as early as in
1664 Margaret Cavendish pointed out that Shakespeare was able to represent women
in such a positive way. Indeed, Cavendishs statement is especially surprising because
it was written at a time when emancipation and equality were not a matter of
contention. In this context the question of how Shakespeares contemporary audience
reacted to his comedies heroines arises.
It goes without saying that Shakespeare was already a successful playwright when he
was alive but apparently he scored an impressive success by pleasing the female
members of his audience. Rachkin offers the following explanation why Shakespeare
attracted so many female spectators:
In Southwark, the immediate neighbourhood of the theatres, at least sixteen per cent of the
households were headed by women, and the prologues and epilogues to many plays explicitly
mark the players awareness that they needed to please female playgoers.144

The critic continues by emphasising that the epilogue of As You Like It, which is
spoken by Rosalind, also indicates how important the female spectators were for
Shakespeare:
[] it addresses female and male playgoers separately, beginning with the women, whom it
charges to like as much of this play as please you, thus suggesting that the you in the plays
title refers primarily to them. Women suffered from numerous disabilities in Shakespeares
England, but the collective economic power they possessed as paying customers in the
playhouse meant that none of Shakespeares plays could have been successful in his own time
if it failed to please them.145

As a matter of fact, it was indispensable for an Elizabethan playwright to write plays

that were appealing for women as they formed an important part of the theatre
audiences. However, Shakespeare seems to have been more successful at attracting

143

Callaghan pp.15-16
Rachkin p.46
145
Rachkin pp.46-47
144

144

women to his theatre than his contemporary playwrights. The main reason why above
all women felt so very attracted by Shakespeares comedies and his heroines is that he
was the first playwright to express the importance of equality between men and
women:
The spirit of his plays, moreover, is profoundly democratic in that he sees men and women,
from the milkmaid to the Empress, the Fool to the wise man, the Prince to the gravedigger, as
equal, subject to the same passions and temptations, crawling from nativity to maturity, to the
lean and slippered pantaloon and dusty death.146

Shakespeares characters as well as his plots illustrate that equality was a very
important issue for him. Moreover, the endings of his comedies also emphasise the
importance of equality in the playwrights eyes. Indeed, all the plays previously
discussed, except for The Taming of the Shrew, end happily with weddings. In other
words, one could claim that Shakespeares comedies have typical fairytale endings.
Shakespeares audience cannot witness any couple after they have been united in
matrimony, except for Kate and Petruccio. As a consequence, the spectators cannot be
sure how these couples will develop after they got married. The audience does not
know whether the female protagonists, who experienced a personal success thanks to
their strong performances, will continue to enjoy their newly found strength in their
marriage. Nonetheless, at the end of his comedies Shakespeare manages to create
utopias which allow his audience to imagine ideal worlds for his characters. It goes
without saying that female spectators in the Early Modern period most definitely
imagined different outcomes for Shakespeares characters than the male spectators
may have done. In this context one may quote Rachkin, who comments on
Shakespeares special achievement in this regard:
Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights contrived nevertheless to have it both ways to reap
the audiences laughter at the satirists sallies against women with compromising their own
position as defenders of women. They wrote for people not likely to take satire at face value,
and they could as a result fashion it into a fine-edged dramatic tool. The dramatists use
scurrility about women for a variety of purposes, but never as a flat statement of their own
point of view.147

Clearly Shakespeare considered Elizabethan women clever enough to recognise the

hidden social criticism and emancipated views expressed in his comedies. This
method proves that the Elizabethan playwright had a very positive view of women,
which makes him extremely innovative for the Early Modern period.

146
147

Dusinberre p.82
Rachkin p.176

145

However, Shakespeares trust in womens intelligence should not mislead modern

readers into assuming that he considered men intelligently inferior to women but he
most likely hoped that his male contemporaries would also be able to recognise his
criticism, which might eventually lead to a change in their view of women and the
way they treated them. Once more Shakespeare proves to be innovative and even
revolutionary for his time in which male thinking was predominated by patriarchal
attitudes towards women.
In this context it proves interesting to compare Shakespeares representation of
women to Jonsons attitude to his female characters. As a matter of fact, Jonsons
characters lack a human psychological development unlike Shakespeares comic
female protagonists. The latter are initially depicted as victims who gradually begin to
fight and who eventually achieve their respective goals. In this context one is easily
misled into limiting Jonson to a misogynist playwright whose attitudes clash
remarkably with Shakespeares modern ideas. However, it has to be stated that the
main difference between these two Early Modern playwrights consists in the different
roles they attribute to the protagonists of their comedies. Whereas Jonson opted to
represent characters constructed for an educational purpose to both entertain and teach
his audience by letting them have a good time while feeling superior to the characters
on stage, Shakespeare followed the rules of a wiser and more communicative form of
comedy. This aspect also turns Shakespeare into an innovative and modern playwright
as it was not the norm for Elizabethan playwrights to give their spectators the
opportunity to identify themselves with the characters on stage and to consequently
sympathise with them. However, it is exactly this characteristic that led to
Shakespeares timeless success as even centuries after his plays first performances,
audiences can still identify with the sensible and likeable characters in Shakespeares
comedies.
Nevertheless, one is left wondering why Shakespeare, the innovative playwright,
occasionally made his heroines experience drawbacks at the end of some of his
comedies. This final loss of independence can be interpreted as a compromise
Shakespeare had to make in order to satisfy his male spectators, who most likely
approved of their superior position in their patriarchal society. Whereas Shakespeare
pleased his female viewers by portraying powerful women on stage throughout the
plays, the endings of his comedies allowed their male counterparts to imagine a
utopian world in which the traditional social hierarchy would eventually be reinstated.
146

It is very likely that modern audiences have similar reactions to Shakespeares

comedies as his contemporaries, a similarity which is illustrated by the extract taken
from Callaghans work mentioned at the beginning of the conclusion. However, there
are two main differences between a modern and an Elizabethan audience.
First of all, in a modern audience female and male spectators no longer perceive
Shakespeares comedies from a rigid gender stance. Due to our background and
knowledge about history, both men and women agree that Shakespeare can be
regarded as an innovative and revolutionary playwright. Indeed, Shakespeare
undertook a new, sudden attempt to create images of powerful women in his
comedies. By representing his female characters in such a positive way, and
simultaneously acting completely against Puritan rule and the predominant thinking of
his society, critics and spectators are able to conceive Shakespeare as a very modern
writer.
Secondly, modern audiences might be more critical of the power and freedom the
heroines enjoy at the end of the comedies. This perception originates in the fact that
Shakespeare depicted various women who apparently surrendered to men again after
they had experienced more freedom in the course of the play and after they had found
a way out of their initial hopeless situations. This is for example the case of Kate
when she is represented as an apparently obedient wife who is inferior to her husband,
in the final scene of The Taming of the Shrew.
Nonetheless, there are two explanations for the previously mentioned reactions that
still allow us to consider Shakespeare to be a playwright who believed in womens
strength. The fact that Shakespeare provided his heroines with so much freedom and
power in the course of the play definitely illustrates the playwrights belief in strong
and intelligent women. One must not forget that Shakespeare had to attract an
audience which did not only consist of women but also of patriarchal men. As a
consequence, he had to add some aspects in his plays that gave his male
contemporaries the impression that the men in the play would save their superiority
over women and that thus the Elizabethan social hierarchy would remain intact.
To sum up, Shakespeares heroines are very positive and attractive characters
giving the audience the opportunity to identify with them. Indeed, after witnessing
their powerful and entertaining initiatives to gain freedom, modern as well as
Elizabethan audiences hope that Shakespeares female protagonists can still enjoy
their freedom and power after the plays have ended.

147

The different conclusions drawn from analysing various Shakespearean

comedies eventually leads to a satisfactory answer of the initial question of this thesis:
Are Shakespeares female characters hopeless victims or powerful winners?
As a matter of fact, both Elizabethan as well as modern audiences would agree that
Shakespeare succeeded in introducing his spectators to apparently hopeless women
who gradually evolve into powerful fighters, a process which eventually allows them
to emerge as hopeful winners at the end of the comedies.

148

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Plays

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Publishers, 2008
Jonson Ben, Volpone, New York: Dover Publications, 1994
Wells Stanley & Taylor Gary (eds.), The Oxford Shakespeare The Complete Works,
Oxford University Press, 1998

Works Cited

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Publishers, 2001
Chedgzoy Kate, Hansen Melanie, Trill Suzanne (eds.), Voicing Women Gender and
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149

Further Bibliography

Barnet Sylvan (ed.), Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Merchant of Venice:

A Collection of Critical Essays, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1970
Callaghan Dympna, Shakespeare Without Women Representing Gender and Race on
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Greer Germaine, Shakespeare, Oxford University Press, 1986
Harp Richard, Stewart Stanley (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson,
Cambridge University Press, 2000
Holmer Joan Ozark, The Merchant of Venice: Choice, Hazard, and Consequence,
Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1995
Kahn Copplia, Roman Shakespeare Warriors, Wounds, and Women, London and
New York: Routledge, 1997
Kastan David Scott (ed.), A Companion to Shakespeare, Malden, Massachusetts and
Oxford: Blackwell, 1999
Kinney Arthur F.(ed.), Renaissance Drama An Anthology of Plays and
Entertainments, Oxford: Blackwell, 2002
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McDonald Russ, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare, Basingstoke: Macmillan
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Novy Marianne (ed.), Transforming Shakespeare Contemporary Womens Re-Visions
in Literature and Performance, New York: St. Martins Press, 1999
Wells Stanley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies, Cambridge
University Press, 1986
Wheeler Thomas (ed.), The Merchant of Venice: Critical Essays, New York: Garland
Publishing, 1991

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