📌 The study argues that Shakespeare’s plays carry ideology beneath their surface concerns with love, jealousy, hatred, war, intrigue, and human failure.
📌 The study argues that Shakespearean tragedies privilege men in a male–female binary and generally portray women as lesser, negative stereotypes from a patriarchal perspective.
Surface plots of love and war contrast with the patriarchal ideology the study reads beneath them.
The literature review describes Harold Jenkins’s 1982 commentary on Hamlet as focused on dramatic problems including delay, revenge, and plot construction.
John Wilders’s 1995 introduction to Antony and Cleopatra discusses Cleopatra’s shifting emotions, her power over Antony, and the play’s international politics.
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Further detail
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📌 Ophelia obeys her father and brother despite her feelings, while Gertrude is portrayed as a negative stereotype for remarrying soon after her husband’s death.
Further detail
Hamlet has two female characters, Ophelia and Gertrude, and the study interprets both through a male and patriarchal perspective.
Hamlet attempts to control Gertrude’s choices by condemning her remarriage and urging her to withhold herself from Claudius.
Ophelia is obedient and controlled; Gertrude is condemned for choosing to remarry.
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📌 Cordelia is portrayed as virtuous and loving but accepts her father’s authority over her life without protest, whereas Goneril and Regan are portrayed as cruel, selfish, and treacherous.
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King Lear’s daughters are:
Lear divides his kingdom after asking his daughters to declare their love for him, and Cordelia’s refusal to flatter him leads him to banish her.
Goneril and Regan turn against Lear after receiving their shares of the kingdom and are depicted as cruel toward him and Gloucester.
Cordelia earns sympathy through obedience, while Goneril and Regan are cast as monstrous rebels.
★ Must-know
📌 The traditional reading attributes Romeo and Juliet’s tragedy to fate and family enmity, whereas the study’s feminist reading attributes it to patriarchy’s denial of Juliet’s freedom to choose her husband.
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Juliet is described as hardly fourteen when her parents arrange her marriage to Lord Paris.
The study presents Juliet’s marriage to Romeo as secret because she cannot safely disclose it to her father, who insists that she marry Paris.
Juliet’s lack of freedom leads her to conceal her love and marriage, seek a desperate remedy from the priest, and face the tragic consequences of that stratagem.
Denied the freedom to choose, Juliet conceals her marriage, and secrecy helps produce the tragedy.
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The witches in Macbeth are portrayed as supernatural women who predict Macbeth’s advancement and are interpreted by the study as evil manipulators and temptresses.
Lady Macbeth urges the murder of Duncan, challenges Macbeth’s manhood when he hesitates, and teaches him to appear innocent while concealing evil intent.
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The study interprets the witches and Lady Macbeth as presenting women in Macbeth as monstrous, irrational embodiments of evil.
After hearing the witches’ predictions, Macbeth considers their implications, hesitates over Duncan’s murder, and is pressed by Lady Macbeth to proceed.
The witches predict, Lady Macbeth urges, and Macbeth acts.
★ Must-know
📌 The study contrasts Rome’s masculine world of state and military duty with Egypt’s feminine world, which it associates with personal feeling and passion.
Further detail
Octavia is not consulted when her marriage to Antony is arranged by men as a matter of state policy.
The study argues that Cleopatra is portrayed as a noble queen only when she rejects the traits labeled feminine and adopts masculine Roman values.
The study interprets Rome’s victory over Egypt as symbolizing the triumph of masculine order and patriarchal values over the feminine world.
Rome signifies masculine public duty, while Egypt is cast as a feminine world of passion.
The study concludes that its five tragedies reinforce and perpetuate patriarchy by portraying women as lesser and inferior to men.
The study concludes that women in the tragedies lack equal social, political, and economic positions and are characterized as passionate, irrational, or immoral.
The study concludes that men make major decisions about women’s lives without consulting them, denying women genuine freedom to decide for themselves.
Take a 19-question practice quiz on Feminist Readings of Shakespearean Tragedies, with every answer explained.
1. What does the study argue lies beneath Shakespeare’s plays’ surface concerns with love, jealousy, war, and human failure?
2. How does the study characterize the portrayal of women in Shakespearean tragedies from a feminist perspective?
Memorize the key concepts of Feminist Readings of Shakespearean Tragedies with 51 flashcards.
What does the study argue lies beneath the surface concerns of Shakespeare’s plays?
Ideology.
How do Shakespearean tragedies generally portray women in the male–female binary?
As lesser, negative stereotypes from a patriarchal perspective.
Which gender do Shakespearean tragedies privilege in the male–female binary?
Men.
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