KUNAL BASU ENGLISH IV MR. CABASCANGO NOV 21, 2008

SHAKESPEARE’S DOMINANT WOMEN: INVERTING THE GENDER DIVIDE

England in the 16th century was a country divided by two antagonistic sides of the same faith. The

Reformation gave birth to a dissident Protestant faith and created a new Church and Bible– the Church of

England and the English Bible, amid much violence that ruined great seats of learning and gave rise to

popular prejudices and superstition. War and foreign invasion of England’s shores devastated the land and

the treasury. Religio-political enmities led to plots, violence, death and execution of sovereigns like Mary,

Queen of Scots, the Essex Uprising (1601) and the Gunpowder Plot (1605). Families and friends

splintered and treachery was rampant; executions were the norm than an exception. Attitudes toward

minorities and women reflected in The Book of Common Prayer that directed the priest to read, to the

newly married pair, a homily that quoted the well-known passage of St. Paul (Ephesians, 5: 22-5), “Ye

women, submit your selves unto your own husbands……….. For the husband is the wife's head,

………….. he is the savior of the whole body.” The patriarchal order of society made it clear that the man

was the leader of the house and the virtues of women lay in their being submissive, dutiful, obedient, and

predominantly silent, easy to manipulate and impress; therefore required strong men in order to protect

them and their chastity. In an era that had witnessed the destruction of seats of learning and women were

managers of the home and hearth, female literacy was inconceivable.

It was not until the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, that Elizabeth I emerged the as the

unquestioned Queen of unified England that also coincided with the English Renaissance. Exploiting

themes of treachery and deceit in a time of strife matched by people’s desire for peace and stability,

Shakespeare created dominant female characters like Lady Macbeth, Margaret, Volumnia, Goneril and

Regan, women who lusted for power and greatness, chose different routes (son, husband and sister) for

carrying their ambitions with varying degrees of success. Only future research can show whether this was

a comment on the efficacy of the then male aristocratic leadership (and the ascent of Elizabeth I to the

Tudor throne). For the insanity of Lady Macbeth, Margaret succeeded in her ambition; Volumnia’s fatal

pride for an obedient son and the machinations of Goneril and Regan – it was as if the Bard was

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attempting a balance between good and evil - peace of the natural order overcoming the strife and evils of

war and treachery. Moreover, such characters contrasted and were outnumbered by conventional others

that embodied contemporary medieval virtues. If for Volumnia there was Virgilia, for Goneril and Regan

there was Cordelia in the same plays. It was as if evil were not always so; rather it seemed an

intermediary instrument for a greater good. At the same time, persisting evil was not condoned,

eventually destroyed. Therefore, the need for severely contrasting characters arose and Shakespeare

effectively filled this gap. Low female literacy coupled with limited printing presses and little circulation

of the plays in printed form added to the exclusion of females from Shakespeare’s works and audiences.

Even male actors essayed female roles in feminine guise. Thus, the audience and actors were male and the

mode of delivery theatrical – a powerful medium with mass appeal and the genesis of a failed revolt too.

The central thesis of this paper therefore is that Shakespeare’s dominant female characters were

experimental inversions of traditional roles that were situation- and audience-specific rather than

possessed of any systematic ‘feminist’ foresight that would have gone against the traditions of a late

medieval and feudal society.

In Macbeth, Shakespeare portrayed Lady Macbeth as a woman who challenged traditional

patriarchal values of English society and established the female character as a significant and heroic

figure among his prominent male figures. Lady Macbeth played a pivotal role as dominant and

commanding mother figure that was independent and strong-willed in her approach to marital, maternal,

and societal involvement far ahead of her times. Her decisive and determined mentality drove Macbeth’s

journey toward tragedy and demonstrated her great concern with her husband’s weak countenance, “Yet

do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o’th’milk of human kindness/To catch the nearest way” (Macbeth 1.5.

16-18). Lady Macbeth recognized that her husband’s impressionable nature left him vulnerable and she

had to convince him to perform the actions, which could provide them with lasting eminence. Macbeth

recognized her overwhelming intensity as being more attributable to males saying, “Bring forth men-

children only!/For thy undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males” (Macbeth 1.7. 73-75).

Lady Macbeth thus effectively challenged Macbeth’s manhood by employing traditional male attributes

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in order to manipulate him with an intensity that was uncharacteristic of women in Elizabethan England.

Her characteristics crossed the gender divide and even made her inhuman as she called evil spirits to

assist her in her pursuit, “Come, you spirits…… And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst

cruelty! Make thick my blood; (Macbeth 1.5. 40-43)

Lady Macbeth continued to defy the traditionally prescribed female roles by her horrifying

description of killing her own infant that illustrated the major conflict of her own attitudes with traditional

maternal roles. Although she was willing to murder her own child, she realized the necessity of brutal acts

such as this in order to accomplish what was best for her family, “I have given suck, and know/How

tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me/ I would, while it was smiling in my face,/Have plucked my

nipple from his boneless gums/And dashed the brains out, had I sworn as you/Have done to this.”

(Macbeth 1.7. 55-60). Yet she was not simply a domineering, insane wife who ruled her husband by

force. Her own rational response to Macbeth’s removal of the daggers from the King’s chamber

suggested her sanity and balance, transcending the gender roles of the time to establish herself as equal to,

if not superior to, her male counterparts.

Volumnia, in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, took on a similarly disturbing motherly role with her

desire to see her son attain great honor, although his life may be at peril in pursuit of such honor -

wounded but “thank[s] the gods on’t” (Coriolanus 2.1. 120). “Away, you fool! It more becomes a

man/Than gilt his trophy/The breasts of Hecuba/ When she did suckle Hector, looked not lovelier/Than

Hector’s forehead when it spit forth blood/At Grecian sword, contemning.” (Coriolanus 1.3. 40-44). Just

as Volumnia took pride in being Coriolanus’ mother, she relied on her son’s valorous battle victories in

order to establish her own honorable position in society as the mother of a great military leader, in a

complete reversal of motherly conduct. The manner in which Volumnia attempted to achieve her own

greatness through the military prowess of her son, “……………….that it was no better than picturelike to

hang by the/wall, if renown made it not stir—was pleased to let/him seek danger where he was like to

find fame. …….I tell thee, daughter, I sprang/ not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child

than/now in first seeing he had proved himself a man. (Coriolanus 1.3. 8-17) Volumnia and Lady

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Macbeth, thus share a common strand – the path of violence in hopes of achieving greatness for their

“sons.”

In a parallel to Macbeth, Coriolanus recognized his mother’s superiority of character and gave up

his attack on Rome although this decision entailed his own destruction. Although Volumnia was a truly

admirable motherly figure who raised her son and established him as a prominent member of Roman

society, she also taught him magnanimity and loyalty to his mother – as if trying to balance contradicting

societal norms, viz. loyalty vs. ambition. This dispassionate and unemotional response showed a woman

who could not accept a menial place as a mother but strove to build a great leader and, therefore, provided

for her own honor and glory.

In Henry VI, Part 2, Margaret’s motive was her ambition. She used her marriage to King Henry

VI to pursue her lust for power. In her first meeting the king and his court, she immediately attracted

attention to herself by speaking in violation of the prevalent social mores, “Great King of England and my

gracious lord,/The mutual conference that my mind hath had,/By day, by night, waking and in my

dreams,/In courtly company or at my beads,/With you, mine alder-liefest sovereign,/Makes me the bolder

to salute my king/With ruder terms, such as my wit affords/And over-joy of heart doth minister.(p. 631,

ll.24-31). Her growing hunger for power was apparent in this speech and continued in Act I, Scene 3

when she overstepped her boundaries as queen and performed functions reserved for either the king or the

Lord Protector; she confronted the petitioners and decided for herself the outcome of the petitioners'

plaints, “What shall King Henry be a pupil still/Under the surly Gloucester's governance?/Am I a queen in

title and in style,/And must be made a subject to a duke? She graduated a step further and influenced her

husband's decisions about other issues. Although Shakespeare portrayed Gloucester the Lord-Protector as

a good ruler who was able to distinguish between falsity and truth (especially in Act II, Scene 1 in which

Gloucester said the claims of Simpcox are false), Margaret attempted to persuade Henry VI that

Gloucester was overly ambitious and harmful In Act III, Scene 1, she aided the Lords to convince Henry

VI that Gloucester's actions were detrimental to the nation leading to the arrest and eventual death of the

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Lord Protector, succeeded in power by Margaret, “With what a majesty he bears himself,/How insolent of

late he is become,/How proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself?”

Shakespeare’s King Lear, even within its overarching themes of justice sought and denied, loss of

station and sanity, and the betrayal of familial trust, centered on the thoughts, designs and emotions of its

female characters. In Act I, Scene 1 Goneril and Regan, seeing both a threat and an opportunity in the

actions of their old father, decided to act together to further their interests. Lear forced his children to

express their love for him – the traditional picture of an aging patriarch asserting his authority by

commanding affection, “My love's more richer than my tongue."(Act I, Scene 1). After Cordelia was

banished for failing to react in the manner of her sisters, Goneril said to Regan: “Pray you, let’s hit

together: if/our father carry authority with such dispositions as he/bears, this last surrender of his will but

offend us.” If Lady Macbeth and Volumnia used their husband and son respectively, Regan and Goneril

exploited their father. Thus, a common strand of all the dominant characters was their propensity to use

close relatives to achieve power and greatness, even if that implied bloodshed and loss of life of a near

and dear one. At the same time, these characters contrasted with weak male characters due to

Shakespeare’s deliberate inversion of prevalent social mores.

In his Essay on Dramatic Poetry of the Last Age, John Dryden (1631 - 1700) aptly described

Shakespeare as “the very Janus of poets; he wears almost everywhere two faces; and you have scarce

begun to admire the one, ere you despise the other.” Shakespeare’s dominant female characters were

experimental inversions of traditional roles that were situation- and audience-specific rather than

possessed of any systematic ‘feminist’ foresight that would have gone against the traditions of a late

medieval and feudal society. Shakespeare dramatized his plays with stark contrasts by inverting the

traditional social patriarchal model of medieval England, projected the intelligence and potential of

women while, at the same time, was cautious not to upset the sensitivities of late medieval English

society; such strong characters also attracted audiences. Shakespeare’s characterization of strong women

and inversion also carried subtle sub-themes, psychological and sociological, political and cultural,

answers to some of which intellectuals from other disciplines have proffered.

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References

http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca

http://www.shakespeare-online.com

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/works.html

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/coriolanus/index.html

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/index.html

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/2henryvi/index.html

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lear/index.html

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1535

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1129

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/england.htm

https://www.msu.edu/user/kahlstep/shakes.htm

http://hubpages.com/hub/Shakespearean-Feminism

http://www.william-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-quotes.htm

http://web.singnet.com.sg/~yisheng/notes/shakespeare/mbeth_f.htm

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