Women Defined by Marriages in Shakespeare Plays - Essay Example

Introduction Marriage is a defining and life-changing event for most people. It is what is called as a cultural universal which means it applies to all cultures in the world whether it is just tribal culture or a modern culture in the Western civilized world. Marriage changes everything in the married person but this is more so in the case of women. This is because marriage imposes many obligations, responsiblities, and in most situations, additional social constraints for them beyond the accepted notions of wifehood and motherhood. For most women, marriage to their man is what defines them in terms of their personalities, social identities, and their futures. In this paper, plays by Shakespeare with women in them will be examined. The married women are examined whether their marriage had empowered them or put them into enslavement. Discussion Marriage can a liberating force when women get married. This is a time for them to live separately from their own families and perhaps get away from an authoritarian father or a domineering mother or away from troublesome siblings. Either way, marriage gives all these women the chance to craft their own lives and their own destiny with their new spouse. There is an overwhelming cultural belief that marriage uplifts a woman into a new pedestal where in a new home she is now the undisputed mistress absent a bad husband. In other words, there is that once-in-a-lifetime chance to start afresh. But on the other hand, marriage can also be very confining whenever social and cultural constraints are imposed on the new wife. Oftentimes, marriage is a new form of enslavement for these hapless or unlucky women. They believed in marriage as a means of escape but instead falls into a new trap that degrades their life. Desdemona in the play “Othello” was defined by her marriage to Othello as the new kind of a feminist woman who is not afraid to stand up for love despite Othello being a black general (a Moor) serving in the army of Venice. She had defied her own father who was very much against her being in love with and eventuall marriage to Othello. In this play, marriage between Desdemona and Othello is defined withn the larger context of racial discrimination. It was unheard of in those early times how a black man could take a white woman for a wife, more so if the white woman belongs to the higher levels of society. Her marriage to Othello is doomed from the start because many people were against their union who plotted to separate them in due time because of adverse cultural attitudes towards miscegenation (MIT 1). Lady Macbeth in the tragic Shakespearean play “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is defined in her marriage Macbeth as a person with unbounded ambitions. She was not just contented to being married to a great and victorious general but aspired for something more, something in her life which she thought was attainable, which was the kingship for her husband. She dreamed and conspired to kill King Duncan so Macbeth can take his place on the royal throne. Lady Macbeth was entirely dependent on her husban being compliant with her wishes for her to attain her grand ambition in life which was to become a queen herself. She was ambitious to the point she would employ murderous means to attain her own grand schemes. Based from the above discussions, the two women can be contrasted in their styles or attitudes towards marriage. Desdemona merely aspired for marriage to her love Othello and nothing more but just to be content as a housewife while on the other hand, Lady Macbeth is much more willful and made more dangerous by her ambitions which blinded her to commit murder to the highest degree, resorting to assassinations to accomplish her objectives in life. Some women can find marriage as a refuge to which they can enter and seek solace while some women see marriage as a stepping stone to become evil for higher aims (Keller 42). In another play “Richard III” which was loosely based on English historical events, the lady protagists were likewise defined by marriages to their respective spouses. Lady Anne had agreed to be the wife of Richard III after her husband was ordered murdered by Richard III and so became a willing or complacent accomplice to his evil plans. She did not object to being used and manipulated to further the ambitions of Richard III to be king himself one day. On the other hand, Queen Elizabeth remained a dutiful wife to the deceased King Edward by protecting her two sons, who are the presumptive heirs to the throne, from the evil designs of Richard III. She had actively resisted the efforts of Richard III to have himself crowned king by siding with the opposing forces commanded by Richmond of the House of Lancaster. She was an active participant in the day's events unlike Lady Anne who was a passive bystander. Within this play, these two women showed different approaches to their marriages by the way they reacted to the political developments around them. Lady Anne acquiesced to her King Richard III by not making any overt moves to stop him or his Machiavellian plans to be king while Queen Elizabeth was astute enough to see through all the machinations around her. Lady Anne could have been terrified and too cowed to oppose Richard III while the Queen Elizabeth was courageous enough to obstruct and thwart the plans of Richard III. Lady Anne is of the mold of women who are submissive while Queen Elizabeth has her own plans. The character of Ophelia in the play “The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark” is not technically speaking a married woman because she died young. Her character was in so many ways reflected how the institution of marriage was used as a tool to illustrate the complexities that exist in people's lives through the tragedy that befell Ophelia who went mad as a result of melancholia or in today's medical parlance, she had beeen in depression. In the play, her own father manipulated her and used her to try to learn why Hamlet was seen as insane but the elitist Hamlet rejected and saw her instead as a whore or harlot (Bialo 294). Meanwhile, Gertrude as the mother of Prince Hamlet in the play “The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark” is the very opposite or antithesis of what Hamlet represents in life. While Hamlet is philosophical and scholarly, Gertrude is very sexual in nature and these actions of hers seem to implicate her in the murder of her husband, the father of Hamlet. The play did not specifically mention Gertrude as guilty of adultery but this was only implied in it. Gertrude as the newly-installed queen was very fond of the finer things in life such that she is viewed as someone who used marriage to attain life's pleasures and not even in mourning for the recent death of her husband, King Hamlet. Gertrude herself did not see anything wrong in her re-marrying too soon, and to her brother-in-law at that (Claudius) which provided the sole motivation of Prince Hamlet to seek the truth about his father's death (Wright 42). Queen Gertrude saw marriage as a way to continue her hedonistic way of life and the marriage to Claudius despite being seen as probably improper due to the haste soon after the death of the previous king, is indicative of how some women see marriage as a protection for them against the uncertainties in life. Being widowed, she sees the necessity of being married to the next king as a form of insurance against her life being degraded to a lower status. The normal social customs and conventions should have dictated against such a marriage. Gertrude is seen by most audiences as someone who has no scruples or principles in matters of life. She had no hesitations whatsoever in agreeing to marry Claudius although this was seen as quite improper by some quarters who frowned on such action on her part. It is the epitome of a person who had no moral principle or ethical consideration but of someone who saw marriage as a conventient way to stay above poverty or any difficulty in life as a widow. Queen Gertrude saw a hasty marriage to the next king as a way to fulfill her own uncontrolled libido such that even her own son, Prince Hamlet, was woeful about this early re-marriage so soon after his father's death with just a very short mourning period for a widow (Levin 305). Some students of Shakespeare's literature see Queen Gertrude not as a weak woman who succumbed to her carnal desires but rather a very strong woman who used Claudius to advance her own objectives. Claudius is sometimes portrayed as a weaker and young consort and that it was Gertrude who manipulated Claudius instead of the other way around. Claudius and Gertrude entered into sort of a modus vivendi wherein they used courtside politics to be able to love each other more freely (Rosenberg 60). They killed people to achieve this aim. It is certainly a surprising perspective or viewpoint to portray Gertrude as a strong woman. The women in Shakespeare's various plays are portrayed as using marriage for their own ends like in the case of Queen Gertrude in “Hamlet” or Lady Macbeth in “Macbeth” or Desdemona in “Othello” where these women only saw marriage as a means to another end. It is a matter of perception by the audience whether this is a desired personal characteristic for a woman to strive hard and use all means available, including marriage, to secure themselves. But in other instances, the women in Shakespeare's plays were shown as weak like Lady Anne who went along with all the evil plans of Richard III although she knew of this evil. Conclusion The plays of Shakespeare in which women played a prominent role carry a message that is hidden in part due to the dictates of the social and moral conventions of his time. There are many implied meanings in the plays of Shakespeare because of his artistic versatitlity and also due in part to this astounding intellect to interpret the foremost prevailing social issues. It can be said the women in his plays were all designed to deliver a message about feminism in its nascent form, how some women utilized the institution of marriage towards a greater end. It certainly takes some serious study to decipher the meaning intended by Shakespeare and it has usually contributed to a good deal of confusion and contention among academic scholars. All these women not only entertain but also deliver a moral lesson (Greenblatt et al. 15). Works Cited Bialo, Caralyn. “Popular Performance, the Broadside Balland, and Ophelia's Madness.” SEL Studies in English Literature: 1500-1900 53.2 (2013): 293-309. Print. Greenblatt, Stephen, et al. The Norton Shakespeare. New York, NY, USA: The W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. Print. Keller, Gregory. “The Moral Thinking of Macbeth.” Philosophy and Literature 29.1 (2005): 41-56. Print. Levin, Richard. “Gertrude's Elusive Libido and Shakespeare's Unreliable Narrators.” SEL Studies in English Literature: 1500-1900 48.2 (2008): 305-326. Print. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “Othello: the Moor of Venice.” n. d. Web. 25 Oct. 2014. . Rosenberg, Marvin. The Masks of Hamlet. Cranbury, NJ, USA: Associated University Presses, 1992. Print. Wright, Courtni. The Women of Shakespeare's Plays: Analysis of the Role of the Women in Selected Plays. Lanham, MD, USA: University Press of America, 1993. Print. Due: October 28, 2014 @ 8:59 a.m. Read More