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Shakespeare Has A Problem With Women

It is a discussion matter the role of women in Shakespearean literature. Many critics suggest that the female characters in his plays are of subservient women. “The central element in Shakespeare’s treatment of women is always their sex, not as a focus for cultural observation or social criticism (though these may be discerned), but primarily as a mythic source of power, an archetypal symbol that arouses both love and loathing in the male” (Berggren 18).
For all his fame and celebration, William Shakespeare remains a mysterious figure with regards to his personal history. There are just two primary sources for information: his works, and various legal and church documents that have survived from Elizabethan times. Naturally, there are many gaps in this body of information, which tells us little about Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare was born in the year of 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. His exact birth date is unknown but it is traditionally celebrated on April 23. In England this day is known as the feast of St. George. He was the third of eight children born to John and Mary Arden Shakespeare. John Shakespeare was a tanner, and a glove maker. He served a term as the mayor of Stratford, a town council man, a justice of peace, and an ale-taster. Unfortunately John could not write. John Shakespeare died in 1601. Since William was his eldest son he received what little land his father owned. Little is known about his mother’s life. It is known that she came from a wealthy family. Her family also paid her husband a handsome dowry.
William Shakespeare went to a very good grammar school in Stratford-upon- Avon. William’s studies were in Greek and Latin. He developed the ability of keen observation of both nature and mankind. It is said that his education ended here. On November 27, 1582, when William was 18 years old, he married Anne Hathaway. She was ten years older than him and also pregnant. Their first daughter, named Susanna, was born the next year on May 26, 1583. The couple also had twins, Hamnet and Judith, in 1585. Hamnet died at the age of eleven, but how he died is not known.
Between the years of 1585 and 1592 no evidence of what happened in Shakespeare’s life is known. These years are called “The Hidden Years”. It is said that during this stretch of time, he ran away from the law or was the apprentice of a butcher, although a man named John Aubrey was told by Christopher Beston that Shakespeare was a school teacher up until 1592 somewhere in London.
Beginning in 1592, in London, he became known as an established playwright. In 1593 he found a patron, Henry Wriothsley, to sponsor him. William Shakespeare was also an actor, writer, director, and stockholder in “The King’s Men” company. He acted for a company called “The King’s Men”. This company became the largest and most famous acting company simply because William was performing and working for them.
Shakespeare retired from theatre in 1610 and returned to Stratford. On the 25th of March, 1616, he wrote his will. On April 23, 1616, the same date as his birthday, William Shakespeare died. He was buried at the chancel of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford. The cause of his death is unknown. Many people believe that he knew that his death was near, but did not want anybody to know.
Seven years after he died, in 1623 William Shakespeare’s first folio was published including 154 sonnets, 36 plays, and his two long poems. The folio was put together by his friends so that nobody could take his work as theirs.
In Shakespeare’s days – sixteenth century in the reign of Elizabeth, it’s almost unbelievable, if we take into consideration the status of women, of course with its discrimination and cruel conditions. 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. In those days as Bashar expressed, “ that certain classes of women were particularly marked out as rape victims in the renaissance (servants, for example) and that women continue to be viewed as sexual terrain to be possessed, violated, and commodified constitute physical, social, and cultural aspects of rape as opposed to purely physical or ‘textual’ ones” (24). Some modern critics claim, he was a feminist, or on the contrary it is historically incorrect. He wasn’t a feminist because we shouldn’t forget that he wrote mainly for a male entertainment. Hamlet says, “Man delights not me” (II. ii. 305). He sees women as a kind of entertainment.
Especially in his tragedies he has a male play. “Particularly in Troilus and Cressida, he seems to be embodying the experience of quite a different sort of women in the image of the archetypal ‘fatal woman’, faithless and ‘immemorial harlot’ the dark side of womanhood associated with witchcraft in Lady Macbeth, Coneril and Regan” (Arbind 1). Here we see how the women characters are seen in Shakespeare’s plays. Novy suggests that “In Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear, the heroes tragically fail to achieve or maintain their trust in the women who love them; they regain it, if at all, when it is too late.”
HAMLET. I did love you once
OPHELIA. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so…
HAMLET. I loved you not.
OPHELIA. I was the more deceived. (III. i. 115-16)

Here we see how the woman is deceived despite her love and faithfulness. In Hamlet, Ophelia’s gift return is a rejection of her love and a denial of her own. In a similar way to Ophelia, Desdemona’s character is both praised for her devotion and criticized for her
sexuality. McCandless writes, “Female sexuality threatens not male authority but male heroism” (2). Desdemona is submissive to Othello for her love. She says, “My love doth so approve him/ that even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns- / have grace and favour ”
(IV. iii. 19-21). Despite her loyalty and love, she is described as deceptive, proud, and manipulative. Berggren maintains that “the women in tragedy seem to split into two basic types: victims or monsters, ‘good’ or ‘evil’ ” (18). In this tragedy Desdemona is both good and victim.
When we look into Shakespeare’s comedies, we see a similar kind of innocence. Hero, from Much Ado About Nothing, is both praised and criticized. She is vulnerable and against everything she prefers silence. Even if she tries to defend herself, she is not allowed to do so. As seen in the wedding scene, although Hero attempts to defend herself, her father cries:
Hath no man’s dagger here point for me’ / ‘O fate, take not away they heavy hand! / Death is the fairest cover for her shame/ That may be wish’d for. / ‘Could she here deny / The story that is printed in her blood’- / Do not live, hero; do not ope thine eyes: / For did I think thou wouldst not quickly die” (IV. i. 112-33).

According to the dominant patriarchal belief , women’s value is equivalent to their virginity. Hero becomes a whore in the eyes of people when they learn she is not a virgin.
Two works, Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night, particularly shows well in regards to Shakespeare’s use of female characters. The Taming of the Shrew is considered to be one of his most controversial from the point of view of his treatment of women. Callaghan writes, “Indeed, some plays (such as the Taming of the Shrew) are overtly misogynist in their content” (52). The “taming” of Katherine is seen excessively cruel, barbaric and demeaning.
In direct contrast to Taming of the Shrew, is Twelfth Night, whose main protagonist is Viola. She is in a foreign land and adopts the identity of her brother so that she might live independently without a husband or guardian. Because, women are not free as much as men in those times. She is the servant of a young man called Orsino. She falls in love with him and in the end, she declares her female identity and her love for him. Callaghan writes:
In Shakespearean comedy the female body is most obviously a problem at the (secondary) level of the text’s fiction, where female characters such as Viola and Rosalind disguise themselves as eunuchs and lackeys . But the female body is also problematized at the primary level of Renaissance theatre practise, in which boys played ‘the woman’s part’. (30-31)

If we look from the authority side, McCandless says:
Central male figures identify desire for a female as dangerous and unmanly. Submission to her power consequently undermines the efficacy of traditional agencies of masculine self-affirmation. In Measure for Measure, male authority suffers in the face of a female’s disruptive sexual power. Positioning himself as a righteous, omnipotent ruler, Angelio disintegrates once his beset by lust for the chaste Isabella.
In short, the comedies enact an essentially oedipal narrative, a drama of reified masculinity that consigns women to the mythical position of object/ obstacle/ objective of the male hero’s quest, the ‘Other’ out of whom he creates himself. (2-3)

These plays show a male fear of female authority and sexuality. Perhaps it is because of long-standing submission to an indomitable female ruler.
As examined in his plays, Shakespearean women are dominated by male figures in their lives. These patriarchal power structures want women to remain virtuous until marriage. The pressure from these expectations leaves women weak and vulnerable. As long as they are obedient to men, they are considered good. “The good woman was closed off, silent, chaste, and immured within the home” (Howard 424). However, the more women try to represent modesty, chastity, and loyalty, the more they are victimized. Because of the passive ideals placed on women, they become unable to act and think for themselves. So women remain childlike rather than mature. Through Shakespeare’s depiction, women are confined and deprived into submissive obedience.