Men and Women in Shakespeare
Although we are more interested in the way William Shakespeare depicted the relationship among men and women, we cannot analyze it without taking into account both, men and women individually. Therefore, we have to pay attention to the behavior of the different characters in the different situations in which they are presented.
If we pay attention to male characters, we discover that they are quite similar to the social reality of the Elizabethan time. As different examples of that we have the figure of Theseus (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) as the political representative of the patriarchal society in which women were powerless in front of the male authority, or the figure of Baptista Minola (The Taming of the Shrew) who represents the father’s dominance over his daughter as well as the traditional ideas of the time when he doesn’t allow Bianca to marry until Katherina gets married. We can say that men are the most realistic elements in Shakespearean comedies since they follow the social stereotyped pattern of what a man is supposed to be and behave.
Female characters, instead, are quite different from reality. They are not submissive from the very first moment. They try to challenge male’s authority in order to be free enough to decide their own destiny: Hermia doesn’t want to marry Demetrius (the one chosen by her father) but her beloved Lyssander, and Katherina is catalogued as a “shrew” because of her bad temper instead of being sweet and submissive as a woman was supposed to be at this time. This behavior is the fact which provokes the conflict and the comical situation that is developed through the whole play. In a real situation, a woman could not behave in this way because it was considered even a break of law. Women had no political power and they couldn’t own anything. In fact, they neither own themselves. That’s why female characters are so innovative in Shakespeare: he gave them voice and power to change their destiny in his plays.
Women are the centre of Shakespeare’s comedies since they are related to the concepts of light and life. They drive the comedy and fight until they get the happy ending.