Janibekov M.Z., Besimbayev
B.N.
Kh.A.Yassawi IKTU, Turkista city, Masters of Philology
Female characters in Shakespeare’s works
Abstract
This article intends to prove
that the female character is just as significant and full of meanings and
symbols as the male character in some of the most important Shakespearean
tragedies.
Through
his female characters Shakespeare showed the importance of women’s role in his
time. He was one of the greatest writers who believed that women had a special
place and power in the society. In order to proceed in exploring the women's role in
Shakespearean plays, we should consider first the social context to which
they belong, the Elisabethan society, as well as the theme and the plot in
which they appear. Despite the power of Elisabeth I, women during
this time had very little authority, autonomy, or recognition. Women gained
their status based on the position of either their father or their husband.
Even more restricting than economic rights were the social and political rights
of women. They were expected to be silent observers, submissive to their
husbands. Women who attempted to assert their views were seen as a threat to
social order. This is significant in that the maintenance of social order was
an extremely important aspect of Elizabethan society.1
Shakespeare is highly sensitive to his target audience in every step of
the writing process. He actively plays upon the beliefs and fears of the
Elizabethans. With characters such as Goneril and Cleopatra, Shakespeare
demonstrates the devastating effects of female rebellion against social order.
Shakespeare invokes sympathy in the audience by creating characters of extreme
feminine virtue such as Cordelia, Miranda. However, Shakespeare often creates
ambiguous emotions in the audience by introducing an element of intelligence
and boldness in the case of Isabella and Desdemona.
Despite the relative insignificance of women in Elizabethan social
order, Shakespeare uses them in many significant ways. He seems to be extremely
sensitive to the importance of women in society even though they are often
overlooked. The idea that men are often a product of the women in their lives
is indirectly suggested in the significant impact women have on men in the
plays. Isabella has a profound influence in the lives of Angelo and Claudio;
Desdemona, by no true fault of her own, turns out to be both a blessing and a
curse in the life of Othello; Cleopatra is a major cause of Antony's downfall.
Although having little respect in the social order of Elizabethan society,
Shakespeare recognises women as a real and significant part of society. Like
all aspects of Shakespeare's plays, the female characters play a significant
role in contributing to plot and theme.
Therefore, both the comedies
and the tragedies bear the mark of women, one way or another. In Shakespeare,
women do not constitute main characters and yet, they play main parts, meaning
that beside every strong male character, there is a woman. For instance, the tragedy of Othello is unlike many other Shakespearean plays, in that
the leading female characters are wiser and more rational than the main male
characters. Throughout the play, quite often the women are the ones who offer
reason to the chaotic world led by men. Emilia continually attempts to convince
Othello of Desdemona's innocence, but he will not listen to her reasoning.
Desdemona, despite Iago's innuendoes, is an ideal wife to Othello. Iago, with
his devilish plans and Othello, with his uncontrollable jealousy represent the
evil in the play while the women reflect the goodness and sanity. 2
Desdemona is the prototype of womanhood. She is very charming, symbolising the
woman ready to face the unknown of marriage being lured into the mystery that
surrounds her husband. Very beautiful and tender, she is a true gentle woman,
but becomes the naive victim in this tragedy. She falls in love with a man who
is older, poorer, and uglier than she is. She pities him because of his tragic
life and respects him for his endurance for pain. She displays her rational and
brave characteristics when she stands up to her father and tells him that, like
her mother, she must show her 'duty' to her husband. This young woman also
boldly asks the Duke if she can go with Othello to Cyprus so that she will not
just be a 'moth of peace' while her noble husband is fighting for their
country. The Duke, like all of the characters in the play, respects Desdemona
and her wishes and allows her to leave with Othello.
Another important female character in Othello is Emilia. Like Desdemona, she is a brave and respectable character.
However, she is not naive like Desdemona. Emilia repeatedly attempts to teach
the innocent Desdemona about the evils of life. She has to convince Desdemona
that there are women who betray their husbands. Carefully watching over
Desdemona, Emilia constantly tries to warn her that jealousy is a 'monster'.
She is not at all afraid of men and does not think twice about defending
Desdemona's honour to the raging Othello. Emilia is confident, calm, and rational
when dealing with the men in this play. When Iago mocks her uncontrollable
'tongue', Emilia does not overreact to his insults. She mostly ignores his
comments and says just enough to defend herself. She knows that her husband is
just trying to make himself look better, showing off for the people around him.
Emilia is a loyal wife to Iago and helps him unknowingly carry out his evil
plans. However, when she discovers the truth behind his lies, she fearlessly
exposes him and all of his schemes. Emilia is a stout-hearted woman who will do
anything to defend innocent Desdemona and the truth.
Another important gentle-hearted female character is Ophelia, Hamlet's unfortunate lover.
She is a naive young woman, who seems lost in the world surrounding her; she is
an obedient, childish and loving woman through her clothing, yet maiden through
her desires. She is involved in a tensioned human world, always torn between
fateful decisions. She seems to belong to another world, to another dimension;
therefore, she does not belong to the world she has to live in. This will
eventually kill her, as she is incapable to fit in, to understand her own
father and her lover. Because her naivety, she is lost in a world too cruel for
her fragile soul. This character, who seems like having feminine perfume
running in her veins rather than human blood, lives an unhappy life, being torn
between her father's death, her lover's not respecting her deep feelings and
her brother's treating her like a child.
The very same tragedy is also marked by another feminine presence: i.e. queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. She is
trapped into living with her husband's murderer, but her gesture is not to be
justified in any way. She becomes the prisoner of the secret she has to keep,
thus becoming the symbol of sin she displays with duplicity. Her behaviour,
wrapped up in some mysterious deeds known only be herself, constitute the
example of virtuosity of those possessed by power. She is constant with
herself, but fate has her led by the very same poison and by the very same man
who caused her husband's death. Therefore, fate's fury, does not allow her to
live anylonger. She has to die, and her death does not aggrieve anyone.
Another female character even more
obsessed with power, is Lady Macbeth. She
is a 'sexless' character who seems to have forgotten that she was born a woman.
Together with her husband, she seems to have been built after a devilish
pattern. Evil and ambition gradually take control over her soul and deeds,
worsening her consciousness. We assist to a process of desperation, slowly
gliding towards death. She is pushing her husband towards fulfilling the
witches' prophecies, as her strongest desire is that of becoming queen at any
costs. As a consequence, her soul is emptied by feelings, becoming insensitive
to murder. She loses control and becomes insane. Therefore, Lady Macbeth, who
used to think that consciousness is only for the coward ones, is ruined by the
sentiment of guilt, and her only salvation is death. But the one who dies is not
as much the female as it is a person dominated by the distorted sense of power.
Another female characters
obsessed with power, but not to such a great extent as Lady Macbeth, are King
Lear's elder daughters, Goneril and Regan. Their deeds are wicked, their
morality is overridden, trampled, their cruelty has no limits. They develop the
Godly feeling about themselves, considering that they are allowed to encroach
upon the obligations towards their father, that a kingdom can be ruled
according to their own wish, without any sense of responsibility. After
becoming powerful, their character becomes primitive, selfish.3
With all the evil residing in this play, Cordelia is the epitome of goodness. She is loving, virtuous, and
forgiving. She also demonstrates law and order in that she is a devoted
daughter and has great respect for her father and his position. Cordelia,
though, is a tragic character, for her kindness and her staying on the
boundaries of the social norms of the Elisabethan age, ironically turned out to
be her tragic downfall. Many people have been quite moved and bemused by her
death, many of which deemed it as injustice.
Cordelia's role in the play may be that of
an angel - like the character who makes the distinction
between good and evil more visible, or who makes us more aware of a crumbling society where many things were opposite to
what one might think it should be, with evil generally prevailing over the good
. The truth is that her presence is needed in order to counterbalance the
effect of her two elder sisters' cruel deeds.
Somewhere in between Cordelia's tenderness, on the one hand, and Lady
Macbeth's cruelty, on the other, lies the 'Queen of love', Cleopatra. Her character is one dominated by love. She's forever
waiting for the man, and even though she's a queen, her kingdom is limited to
her love. She embodies the feminine eternity. She takes control over life
through love's strings but when something happens and she loses control over
theses strings, she becomes heartless, cruel. She's both an angel and a demon
in the same time. Tenderness and cruelty mingle in her soul and these two keep
inter-reacting all the time under different shapes. Shakespeare also emphasises
on how, by acting in such an aggressive manner, Cleopatra upsets the natural
order of a male dominated society. By encapsulating in one person what all men
want, sex and power, Shakespeare created a character that can direct men even
if they are not aware that they are being used for her selfish goals.4
Cleopatra is contrasted by Octavia
who yields in every matter to men. This would parallel the Jacobean mindset
that women were subservient to men and should not voice their own opinions.
Octavia is the chaste and pure 'white beauty', while Cleopatra is the 'black'
seductress. It is these exotic qualities that lure Anthony back to Egypt like a
moth to a flame. It is this tension between two opposing natures that adds
tension to the tragedy. By placing importance on their differences Shakespeare
covers a broad spectrum of womanhood.
Another well-defined representative of womanhood is the character of Miranda from 'The Tempest' who is extremely compelling for two reasons. First,
it is important to note that Miranda is the only female character who appears
in the entire play. This is the only Shakespearen play where a character has
this kind of outstanding distinction. This is not just a fluke on the part of
Shakespeare, for it is very important that the character of Miranda appears by
herself. The reader is not able to compare her beauty and virtue to any other
female in the world of 'The Tempest',
and this serves both to show her value as a character and the fact that no
other living women has the virtue of Miranda. While Miranda may not have many
outstanding lines or soliloquies, she makes up for this in sheer presence
alone. Miranda's character encompasses all the elements of perfectionism and
goodness which is lacking in all the other respective characters.1
Secondly, Miranda also serves as the ultimate fantasy for any bachelor.
She is extremely beautiful, intelligent and she has never been touched (or even
seen) by another male. Shakespeare makes Miranda even more desirable by
including the fact that she has never seen or even talked to another man.
Miranda personifies the ultimate source of good in the play, and provides the
ultimate foil for the evil character of Caliban. Finding a woman this humble in
the world of Shakespeare is almost impossible. Miranda shows a positive
attitude which is almost awkward when compared to the other characters. In all
of the collected works of Shakespeare, not one character is as overwhelmingly
pure as Miranda.
The only conclusion I considered
to be fit is that his plays couldn't have existed without them, they wouldn't
have had the same value.
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References: 1.The
Norton Anthology of English Literature 2. Abrams, M.H. et, al (1979) The Norton Anthology of English
literature, V01. 1, New York: W.W. Norton Company. 3. Bloom, Allan (1984), Shakespeare’s Politics, London: The University
of Chicago Press Ltd. 4. Frye, Northrop (1986), Northrop Frye on Shakespeare, University
Press New Heaven, CT: Yale University Press.
5.Internet sites |