In the first scene Gregory and Sampson discuss raping the women of the Capulet household and taking “their maidenheads” (virginity). They see rape as a demonstration of their power over women which can be described as an abuse of love. Another type of love introduced in act one is maternal love. This is the love which should be felt by Lady Capulet towards Juliet, but instead seems to be felt by the nurse. When calling Juliet, the nurse
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.
The young teens focus on romantic love, specifically the intense passion that springs up at first sight between them. Love in Romeo and Juliet is a brutal, powerful emotion that captures individuals and catapults them against their world, and, at times, against themselves. Relationships are also a major focal point of the play, as they are two star struck teenagers with an addiction to each other to the point of Juliet faking a death just to be with Romeo forever. The play, rather than presenting a specific statement of love, portrays the chaos and passion of being in love, combining the themes of love, passion, family, and violence, and how they conflict with each other. Romeo and Juliet’s love, like the love of the youth, is acted upon very quickly and impulsively.
Also, Mercutio and Benedick are both scornful of love. However, Benedick does finally fall in love with Beatrice. Additionally, each male young lover has his group of friends in each play. However, in Much Ado About Nothing, Hero also has her group of acquaintances; Juliet does not. Also, several similarities in plot exist between Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing.
One of the ways this is illustrated through is in the second stanza he describes her as being ‘slapped up’. The onomatopoeic phrase suggests men’s sarcastic prejudice view on women as sexual objects; it also emphasizes the challenges the girl is facing in men’s attitudes toward her. Larkin also humiliates the girl by describing the obscene disfigurement to the image of her ‘huge tits... A tuberous cock and balls’. The taboo language helps to demonstrate more than just adolescent immaturity but deliberate and repeated attempts to degrade her by a kind of visual rape. However one could also argue that Larkin seems to justify violence against women by suggesting that access to women is something men have been unfairly deprived of.
This creates a potential struggle to men not only for the balance of good and evil but also the ideology of sanity. Perhaps man's deception of Venetian women (femininity) being of 'perfection' and of 'spirit quiet and still' led to conceivable struggles (I.3.95-97) between the masculine characters ideology of women. Women are powerful. Just because women were restricted by society's standards, it did not mean they restrained themselves to mutual silence. In (IV.2.195) we discover that Emilia responds to Iago's commands repulsively.
Superiority and overconfidence always seem to be closely associated with dominance and gender; and is amongst the dominant perspectives expressed by Shakespeare in the play, “Richard the Third”. The conflicting viewpoints of both sexes over superiority, is developed in Richard the third in the male point of view whereby Shakespeare reveals us to a male dominated world. “Why, I can smile...And murder while I smile!” It can be interpreted from the play that the: manipulative, malicious, power-hungry, Richard the third, did not have much regards for the life of women. Richard finds women inferior to men, has no respect for their emotions, and views them as tools. As far as the two major female characters of the play are concerned, Richard's attitude towards women becomes quite evident, and furthermore reflects his attitude towards life in a whole.
In the play “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare love is an important theme. In this play, Juliet and Romeo fall in love while Romeo is trying to get over Rosalind and Juliet is having an arranged marriage, their families are also feuding. In Shakespeare's play, Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet all have different views of love. Mercutio’s view of love is very humorous and not true, Romeo’s view of love is hopeless; he likes being in love, but does not like love itself. Lastly, Juliet’s view of love is logical; she does not follow love blindly.
Helene Cioux: The Laugh of the Medusa The Laugh of the Medusa is about how women shouldn’t be afraid to express themselves through literature. The article is written from a feminist’s point of view. According to the article, women are afraid to write in a world that is controlled by men. I chose a paragraph from the article to summarize: “Men have committed the greatest crime against women. Insidiously, violently, they have led them to hate women, to be their own enemies, to mobilize their immense strength against themselves, to be the executants of their virile needs.
Women are placed as central characters in these plays,however they face oppression and, like in 'Othello', often end up as victims due to men determining what they decide is right as they hold superiority over their women. On the other hand, the sole female character in 'The Tempest',Miranda, faces a different eventuality although occasionally encountering with disadvantages of social organisation. Despite the social strengths male characters hold, it is interesting to explore the petty behavior they display to their audience,proving them,in fact,weaker than those they oppress. Feminist audiences and critics may agree that the male character's strengths in society are heavily outweighed by their emotions and lack of control over them therefore making female characters seemingly more stable in these plays. Whereas an audience in Shakespeare's London may criticize the female characters and blame them for the male characters' downfall rather than seeing that the weaknesses lie with them themselves.