Works
Shakespeare's works include the 36 plays printed in the First Folio of 1623, listed according to their folio classification as comedies, histories and tragedies. Two plays not included in the First Folio, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, are now accepted as part of the canon, with today's scholars agreeing that Shakespeare made major contributions to the writing of both. No Shakespearean poems were included in the First Folio.
In the late 19th century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late comedies as romances, and though many scholars prefer to call them tragicomedies, Dowden's term is often used. In 1896, Frederick S. Boas coined the term "problem plays" to describe four plays: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet. "Dramas as singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies or tragedies", he wrote. "We may therefore borrow a convenient phrase from the theatre of today and class them together as Shakespeare's problem plays." The term, much debated and sometimes applied to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet is definitively classed as a tragedy.
Tragic Women Of Shakespeare (Juliet, Portia, Ophelia, And Cordelia) Essay, Research Paper
Women in Shakespeare’s plays were not of importance, compared to the male characters. Though, the women had a minor role in the plays, they played a big role in the lives of others in the play. Some of them will end tragically, or end the same way they started, as nothing.
In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet Capulet to me seems to be the most tragic of all Shakespeare’s women characters. She fell in love with Romeo Montague, the enemy. She had to “sneak out” to the balcony late at night so she can talk to her Romeo. She has made no mention of Romeo to her parents, only the nurse that attended her. That shows us how treacherous and devious Juliet had to be to be with her Romeo. With some communication between the nurse and Friar Laurence, eventually, Juliet and Romeo got married. Then her parents announced that she was to marry County Paris. Which she does not want to marry at all for two reasons: she loves Romeo, also she is already married. To end it all, she had to kill herself to live with Romeo for the rest of her life, which is what she wanted. A plan was devised, where Juliet would appear dead, and wake up in Romeo’s arms. But with bad communication problems, that was impossible. Juliet faked her death, but Romeo thought she was actually dead, so he killed himself. By waking up, Juliet finds out that Romeo died and decided to end her life to be with her Romeo. In this case, it shows the tragedy of human existence because she was not allowed to be with an enemy that she loved. It was not a tragic flaw because Juliet did what she thought was the right thing to do. It was not the wrong thing to do because again, Juliet must be with her Romeo. On a good note, due to Romeo and Juliet’s death, that caused the parents of the Capulets and Montagues to reconsider their feud and became friends.
In Julius Caesar, Brutus’ wife, Portia did not display herself very much in the play. The only important thing she did was that she showed concern for Brutus, in Act Two, Scene one, lines 238-257, lines 262-279, lines 292-303. She was being a typical wife to Brutus, being concerned for his actions, his behavior, his emotions and feelings. She was genuinely scared for Brutus, but Brutus, being the tough guy he is, brushed her off by saying that he is only sick. Eventually, Portia sliced herself to prove her love to Brutus. That is an act of desperation. She should not be doing this kind of behavior to get Brutus’ attention, but she did so. Finally, in Act four, Scene three, Portia is declared dead by stuffing her mouth with hot coals. There are two things that came from this. Portia could have done it herself, to stay quiet about the conspiracy, or, Brutus’ pals decided to kill off Portia to shut her up. From what I have read, it said that she “took hot burning coals and cast them in her mouth, and kept her mouth so close that she choked herself.” That tells me that she killed herself. With her death, as a blow to Brutus, it does not affect the play in a big way. Brutus’ actions were something like “oh, she’s dead, oh darn, life goes on.” It seems to me that Brutus does not care very much for Portia, only for himself. Portia has failed. She was not able to continue supporting Brutus, or even expose the conspiracy to the other people in Rome. It is a big failure, how she just decided to end her life. With hot coals in her mouth, it seems to me that she decided to punish herself, and used the hot coals to shut her up. Therefore, Portia did not do much in the play, just show concern for Brutus and decided to kill herself during the play. That shows a big tragic failure in Portia.
Thirdly, there is Hamlet. Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius. In the first act, Laertes has warned Ophelia about Hamlet’s madness and tells her to stay away from him. Later, we meet Ophelia and she is frightened by Hamlet’s actions. Then to make matters worse, Ophelia is used as a pawn in a game against Hamlet as displayed in Act Three, Scene one. At that moment, Ophelia has absorbed some of Hamlet’s madness and made it into her own private abyss of madness. Singing nonsense (act four, scene 5). Soon, she is found dead in water, with garland out “Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,” (act five, scene one, line 170. There are two possible outcomes out of her death. She could be murdered, or she acted on killing herself. She is an innocent being that was trapped in Hamlet’s world and was not able to get out until it was too late. I would safely say that she had a tragic flaw in herself. She was not strong enough to help herself and it ended in death. With no support from others, her brother, and father encouraged her to be a pawn to Hamlet to find out the cause of his madness, which influenced Ophelia. It could be the tragedy of human existence because she had no help, and the only thing she thought was best was to kill herself. If she did kill herself that is. She started off innocent, then ended up in water. There is nothing to be blamed on Ophelia. She did not have any internal control, while she let the external factors influence her for who she is.
Finally, there is Cordelia, one of the daughters of King Lear. She had not much to say in the play itself. When the father asked her to tell him that she loved him, she couldn’t. In the end, she was “jailed” and eventually died in her father’s arms. There was nothing tragic about her death because she did what she knew what was right. She did not love her father and told him so. Though, there was a small part of her that loved her father. In Act Four, scene four, Cordelia finds a soldier and commands him to find her father and put him under her doctor’s care. It is nice that she died in her father’s arms because King Lear finally realized that it was Cordelia that should be the one that should get the land because she was the one that told the truth about her love for him all along. In final words, Cordelia’s death was not tragic. It just happened that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and died for it. Basically, it was her that told the truth throughout the entire play, (and the fool too). Therefore, she died because she had to. There was nothing tragic about her death, except that King Lear should have loved her, not his other daughters, Goneril and Regan.
Each of the women in the four plays that we have read, each had a minor role, but that minor role turned out to be one of the important key factors in the conclusion of the play itself. Juliet died because she loved Romeo. Portia died because she loved Brutus. Ophelia died because she loved Hamlet, and finally Cordelia died because she loved King Lear. People should not die for love, but in Shakespeare’s plays, it seems so. Therefore, for love, death is tragic. But if death is the only way to die, then death is the best way to die.
Shakespeare, one of the most famous and well read playwrights in English literature, has created several different women characters—Cleopatra, Juliet, Beatrice, Viola and others – who are still remembered. These women characters have different qualities that actually give us a peep in the choice of the characterization that Shakespeare creates. Shakespeare’s women characters are perhaps the most famous characters made by any other playwright. They are called by several different terms by the critics such as, “unruly women” “the female wild” and the “outlaws”. Shakespeare goes to every other detail to give his women characters a fresh look. They hold a special place in his plays and without them perhaps the work may not be considered complete.
The critics have often called the women characters unruly, who believe in living life on their own terms. Some of them also believe that Shakespeare’s characters are rebellious feminists. “Shakespeare’s heroines rebelled against the men and the society in their attempt to rule or being broke down by a social arrangement mostly involving men.” There is another point to note about Shakespeare’s women characters that were in his plays when Elizabeth I was on the throne. Critics believe that during the reign of Queen Victoria, the plays of Shakespeare were framed particularly by keeping in mind the female audience or readers. There was no single passage in the play which could violate feminine sensibilities.
Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s wife in Shakespeare’s most popular play Macbeth, is the most famous and fearsome female character. She is not a feminine symbol in the play but a masculine one. She is an immensely ambitious woman. She is an unruly woman, lusty for power and greedy for position. The character of Lady Macbeth as framed by Shakespeare is actually the most difficult for the Victorian age to take in. In the beginning itself, the audiences find her making the plot of Duncan’s murder. She has no weaknesses in her character and is strong and ruthless about her thoughts. She understands the situations around her completely and knows that she has to force her husband Macbeth to commit murder. Lady Macbeth is so adamant abut her plans that at a point she even wants to shed her feminism to so that she can execute the murder herself. In the words of Lady Macbeth’s husband--she has a masculine soul living in a female body that associates masculinity with violence and lust for power. She has the ability to control her husband with noteworthy efficiency, and she can overrule all his doubts, protests and hesitations about committing the murder. She even questions his manhood again and again to make him feel that he has to kill to prove himself. After the murder, Lady Macbeth uses her will and strength to pacify her husband’s nervousness. She portrays a more tragic role than Macbeth as ambition causes her slow slide into madness more stoutly. Therefore, he feels the guilt of the crime even stronger. In the end of the play, once the guilt takes her over completely, the sensibility of Lady Macbeth becomes her weakness, which drags her into the darks of life, unable to cope with thesiutation. As she kills herself ostensibly, this indicates how she was completely unable to deal with the guilt of the crime.
Cleopatra is the most popular character created by Shakespeare in the plays Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. She was the ruler of Egypt who succeeded in solidifying her grip on the throne by consummating a link with Julius Caesar. Caesar was charmed by Cleopatra and she became his mistress, despite the thirty years age difference between them. She gave birth to a son, named Caesarion, about whom Cleopatra claimed Caesar was the father. She wanted Caesarion to become his heir, but Caesar refused. It is believed that when Caesar was assassinated, Cleopatra was present along with Caesarion. After Caesar’s assassination, Cleopatra got involved with Mark Anthony, who spent a great time with her in Alexandria, upsetting the people back home in Rome. She gave birth to his twin children and Antony married her in 37 BC. In the battle of Actium in 31 BC, Antony's forces had to face the Romans in a naval battle fought off the coast of Actium. According to a popular story about the war, Cleopatra was also present there along with her fleet and when she saw that the fleet of Antony is not well equipped to be able to face the far superior forces of the Romans, she fled from there. Antony too left the battle in between to follow her. This, indicates that Cleopatra used her tremendous beauty and charm to control her reign and to protect it from the Romans. Cleopatra is one of the controversial heroines of Shakespeare’s historical plays. Cleopatra is considered the most beautiful of women, who bewitched several men rulers with her physical beauty and attraction. She is a “gypsy” and has immense beauty and open sexuality.
Ophelia is a confused female character created by Shakespeare. She is completely controlled by the influences of people around her. This affects her ability to express her deep feelings about anything. She has to hold back her emotions time and again and this results in her going mad. Ophelia is a major influence on Hamlet and also affects his return to sanity. Moreover, she also molds Laertes. Ophelia is not one of the Shakespeare’s strongest women characters as her madness and death are caused due to the pressure exerted by her father and the king on her. When her father dies she loses both her identity and her sanity. Ophelia cannot give up without torturing herself. Her craziness holds base on the mental torture that she develops due to the constraint on her. Her madness and eventual suicide holds a great influence on all other characters in the play. Laertes’s grief at Ophelia’s death makes him plan out the murder of Hamlet. When Gertrude learns about Ophelia’s death, she goes into a state of utter perplexity at the loss of such a nice and innocent person.
Beatrice is the witty heroine of the play Much Ado About Nothing. Her character is memorable and is in the original style of Shakespeare. We notice her opposing marriage firmly. She makes her first comment to the messenger about Benedick’s welfare. She asks many questions about him which indicate her growing interest in him which perhaps she did not know about herself. Then, after Benedick and other soldiers arrive, we see her having strong verbal duels with Benedick. The way in which she makes comments about him indicates that they knew each other before. Like Ophelia, Beatrice is also influenced by other characters which can be seen by her emotional engagements with Hero and Claudio.
It is quite common for women to have leading roles in the plays of Shakespeare. In romantic comedy plays like Much Ado About Nothing and some tragic plays like Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra, we find Shakespeare’s women characters taking on the other male characters. The women characters of Shakespeare have strong feminine influences and unique personalities which affect the plot and outcome of the play. Even though the plots of the plays are distinct, we find lots of similarities between the women characters.
In conclusion, it is interesting to note that Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare, were ahead of their time and used their feminine characters to make an “informal” protest against the adverse situation suffered by women of the period. In the case of William Shakespeare, not only did some of the women characters take on masculine attitudes, but they also orchestrated plans and plots in order to highlight this shocking distinction. As far as Miguel de Cervantes is concerned, he dared to show sympathy for the plight of women in Spain during the 16th century, and through his writings, hinted that not only needed but deserved their own identity.
In Shakespeare’s tragedies and his plays in general, we can come across several types of female characters. Their influence with other characters and their purpose or role, often underestimated like women themselves, will be this essay’s main subject.
Women in Shakespearean plays have always had important roles, sometimes even the leading role. Whether they create the main conflicts and base of the plays, or bring up interesting moral and cultural questions, they have always been put in challenging situations. Some women are stronger than others, and their effect on the play is different for each one. They often even surpass the male heroes. It’s almost unbelievable, if we take into consideration the status of women, of course with its discrimination and cruel conditions, in Shakespeare’s days - sixteenth century Elizabethan England. But there could have been many reasons, why he gave his characters such qualities. It could have been the Queen Elizabeth I. on the throne, or a certain influence of his marriage with older woman. Some modern critics claim, he was a feminist, or on the contrary it is historically incorrect, because we shouldn’t forget that he wrote mainly for a male entertainment. Particularly in his comedies we frequently see a woman take on the strongest character, while often in his tragedies he has a male play the isolated tragic hero.
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