Gender Identities in Tragedy and Romance
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It is a peculiar feature of Shakespeares plays that they both participate in and reflect the ideas of gender roles in Western society. They reflect existing notions about the proper roles of men and women, they can be said to be a product of their society. However, since they have been studied, performed, and taught for five hundred years, they may be seen as formative of contemporary notions about the relationships between males, females, and power. Masculinity, “is not a natural given, something that comes with possession of male sexual organs, but an achievement, and something that must be worked toward and maintained “(Smith 131 Most of Shakespeares plays have traceable sources for their central plots. Representations of gender in Renaissance drama are tied to their original presentation bearing the traces of their history in a theatrical enterprise which completely excluded women, construct gender from a relentlessly andocentric perspective. It is the ways in which these texts reflect or distort the gender expectations of society, either Elizabethan or contemporary, that is so important.
It is the exaggerated character–Falstaff, Petruchio, Paulina, or Cleopatra–or those who step outside the borders of their assigned gender roles–Rosalind, Portia, and Viola–who generate the greatest theatrical and critical interest. Elizabethan society had a loosely determined set of normal behaviors that are frequently linked to gender. Despite diffusion of these gender expectations in both time periods (see Dollimore), there are definite behaviors that either lie within the constructs of gender or go beyond patterns accepted as conventional. Female characters in Shakespeare do take on male roles, and whether it is because their true identity is hidden or simply by virtue of their acceptance as non-female, they are able to function in the text in ways that an undisguised female character could not.
“If it is the mans part to swagger, roar, thunder, boast, and swear, then Petruchio is the perfect type of the male. But these behaviors are excessive and farcical exaggerations of normal masculine behavior” (Kahn 109). Behavior suited to a man is prohibited in a woman, since she must be complementary to him, not competitive with him. Women are forced to assume the roles of men over and over in most of Shakespeares plays. It is normally in comedy that we witness women assuming the roles of men. It is in Cymbeline that we witness cross-dressing of a woman to become a man. Imogen (in Cymbeline) is told by Pisanio that she “must forget to be a woman; change . . . fear and niceness . . . into a waggish courage, / Ready in gibes, quick-answerd, saucy, and/ As quarrelsome as the weasel” (III.iv.154-159). She is convinced to play the role of a man because it will make it safe for her to travel. It is only disguised as a man that she can go after her husband to prove her innocence.
Another scene where we see a female acting in a “manly” way is with the Queen in Cymbeline. She is set upon gaining power through the marriage of her son to Imogen, but is thwarted. Her influence is evil in its cruelty in trying to gain what she wants and making the king her puppet. Though the play is titled Cymbeline his character is never truly developed or analyzed in depth. Posthumus is also left undefined or analyzed, but has an air of being unworthy for the bride that he has been given in this play. Imogen is the perfect bride and the picture of innocence in this play. She is the complete opposite of her stepmother the Queen who is the epitome of evil and cunning. The only male character that is really analyzed or defined in this play was Iachimo. The Italians during this time werent viewed with favor by the British, and I think thats what makes him such a good character. Iachimo reminds me of Iago in his deception and manipulations of the people around him. Iachimo wasnt hoping for Imogens death or that of Posthumus, but was looking for gratification of being better. The only defined male character in this play is seen as being evil and sinister because of his manipulations.
The females in Shakespeare dont always have to be in disguise though to take on the characteristics of a male. The best example of this is Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, and how she assumes the role of manliness. She isnt a man in the physical sense, but her attitude follows the ideals of manliness. Ramsey says, “Lady Macbeth ritually prepares herself for the deed her husband must commit by calling on the spirits of murder first to divest her of all vestiges of womanliness- “unsex me here; – with the implication that she will be left with male virtues only; and then to nullify her “kind-ness” itself” (Ramsey, 287). The language she uses leads you to believe that the only think keeping her from acts of cruelty and violence are her womanhood, breasts and milk.
Lady Macbeth by standards in this play is the masculine character until we see Macduff later on. She is fiendish and cunning in her ways of manipulation with Macbeth. “Then, with a truly fiendish cunning she goes on to tie up all the strands of her argument in a single violent image, the murder of her own nursing infant for a strategic reversal of sex- the humiliating implication being that she would be more truly masculine in her symbolic act then he can ever be,” (Ramsey, 289) He also says that, “true masculinity has nothing to do with those more gentle virtues men are supposed to share with women as members of their kind; these are for women alone, as Lady Macbeths violent rejections of her own femaleness prove.” (Ramsey, 289)
Lady Macduff in her own right tries to manipulate her husband, not into murder but into loving her. “Lady Macduff denounces her virtuous husband to their son for what seems to her to be Macduffs unmanly, even inhuman abandonment of his family. And this poor woman, who fears her husband lacks that milk of human kindness that Lady Macbeth deplores in her spouse, ends her life with a terrible commentary on the badness of the times.” (Ramsey, 294) This is another woman that is taking on the role of aggressor without having to disguise herself. The contrast between the empowering masculinization of female characters and the paralyzing feminization of males is appropriate to a tragedy or a satire.
The positive male characters that we see in Macbeth come from that of a wounded sergeant and Macduff. This is only in the very beginning and towards the very end that we get to view this strong male identity. “What bloody man is that? (I.ii.I) The sergeants gore, of course, is emblematic of his valor and hardihood and authorizes his praise of Macbeth himself, valors minion