Beatrice is cynical and witty; she doesn’t conform when it comes to the role of women in Elizabethan time. In terms of how males view females, there is a theme of cuckoldry (men who married unfaithful wives). This is shown in the first scene when Leonato confirms that Hero is his daughter, ‘Her mother hath many times told me so’, a joke at her expense, implying she is unfaithful to him. In a conversation between Claudio and Benedick, they talk about Hero. Claudio asks if he ‘noted’ her, Benedick tells him he did not, but he ‘looked on her’.
Once, Shahrazad (King's vizier's elder daughter) makes a plan to save herself and other virgins and asks the father to give her in marriage to the king. The plan is that she tells a story every night, but she stops when the story reaches its interesting point and promises to finish it the next night. Shahrazad's stories are so interesting that the king wants to hear the end. During his concernment, the king puts off punishment from day to day and finally he abandons it (Norton, The Thousand and One Nights, 1566-1567). Some people believe that Shahrazad's stories are the beginning of feminism while others not.
Although she wrote in her will that Isabel and her little sister Ruth would be freed after her death, a wicked and greedy relative, Robert FInch decides to sell both orphans for a great deal of money. Isabel is horrified; she was promised her freedom. “I spoke up again. ‘We’re to be freed, sir. The lawyer, Mr. Cornell, he’ll tell you.
Although she wrote in her will that Isabel and her little sister Ruth would be freed after her death, a wicked and greedy relative, Robert FInch decides to sell both orphans for a great deal of money. Isabel is horrified; she was promised her freedom. “I spoke up again. ‘We’re to be freed, sir. The lawyer, Mr. Cornell, he’ll tell you.
William Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet, offers detailed and often callous insights into the role of women, and men, in the Renaissance period in which the playwright lived in. Throughout this time, traditional women were often constantly criticised and treated as inferior to male counterparts. As such, Shakespeare has constructed his female characters to fulfil these traditional roles; however by taking a feminist approach these female characters appear marginalised and degraded. Ultimately, through the playwright’s representation of women, they can be see as worthless, sexual objects , both weak and inconsiderate in nature. Through a modern perception on the playwright’s female characters, women can be seen as worthless, sexually corrupt indiviudals.
Through quotes from the book, the observation of womanhood is negatively seen by men in the play. It is true in history, women in royal families are somewhat sold to other nobles of state to aid their relationships diplomatically. Marriages by politics are common during thetime. It is used as a bond secondary to sending fortunes to increase the bond between nations and furthermore alliance. As Cordelia is sent to Duke of Burgundy as being banished from England, it is likely to say that she is banned from her father and her nation.
She calls the women “foul contending rebel[s]” and “graceless traitors” to their husbands. The fact that Katherine insulted the wives is another way she shows her dominance among the women and the unkind, look downed upon, nature that is put upon the wives. Ironically, Katherine also states that a women who do not obey her husbands are “muddy,” “ill-seeming,” and “bereft of beauty” implying that these wives are these characteristics because of their disobedience to their husbands. Using these words, Katherine patronizes and reprimands these wives publicly almost as if she was teaching them a lesson on how to be true wives. The condescending tone that Kate uses on these wives is a basically a scolding for their disobedience and also a lesson on why wives should submit to their husbands so humbly.
Although she claims to have been truly in love with the elder brother, and that “the Game was over” only after she has been “trick’d once by that Cheat call’d, LOVE,” (P.51), we can still see Moll’s manipulative nature and her extreme greed, by receiving money from the older brother in exchange to fulfill his sexual favors. This suggests that her attitude towards love and marriage is very emotionless, which is an attitude that she carries forward through many of her future affairs; another example is the affair with her long-lost brother, where she deceives him by saying “I had declar’d my self to be very Poor, so that in a word, I had him fast both ways; and tho’ he might say afterwards he was cheated, yet he could never say that I had cheated him” (P.68). This again shows the dirty ways that Moll often uses to manipulate men and take advantage of them; the reader rarely gets a picture of her as a sympathetic and loving creature, and thus would feel less sympathetic towards her as well. Moll might be cruel and heartless in the way she manipulates people to benefit herself. However, it is always important to
Iago tells to Othello “every man who is married has an unfaithful wife. Every woman who is married is an unfaithful wife.” It may be true for some men and women but there could be some exceptions such as Desdemona. Iago tells Othello that it is better to know the truth, which Iago knows that it is not the truth. Iago speaks to Cassio, not about Desdemona, but about Bianca, because Othello couldn’t hear what Iago and Cassio said, but could only see Cassio’s face. He is convinced that Iago was speaking the truth.
There are many scenes in the play which show that interracial marriage is shunned, or even taboo in Elizabethan society. One example of this is in Act 1 Scene 2 of the play when Brabantio (Desdemona’s father) confronts Othello over his marriage to Desdemona. “Damned as thou art, thou hast enchanted her…….So opposite to marriage that she shunned The wealthy curled darlings of our nation……run from her guardage to the sooty bosom Of such a thing as thou”. Here we can see the attitude of people in Elizabethan society through Brabantio’s exclamations of disbelief that his daughter would possibly choose Othello over the most eligible men in the whole nation. The attitudes in the play are quite different to those of a contemporary society such as our own.