Androgyny: and the Will of Shakespeare’s Female Characters: A Feminist Viewpoint

Throughout Man’s history, females have constantly been at a disadvantage socially, economically, and politically. Shakespeare realized this and sought to bring the controversy that comes with Androgynous issues—to life. By way of sturdy female characters and the implications of disguises, Shakespeare exposes gender challenges. Quite a few critics think Shakespeare poorly represents ladies in his plays by means of intentional exploiting of girls with his boy-girl-boy disguises. When in fact, I see Shakespeare as exploiting how females have been/are treated via that pretty use of disguises and— the strength he offers his female characters, especially that of Portia (Merchant of Venice) and Viola (Twelfth night)—is representative of his personal admiration of intelligent, robust women. It is also essential to mention that the thought of a transsexual theme did not exist in the course of Shakespeare’s time, as in the identical sense that 1 would have now. Guys playing the component of women—playing the portion of men was basically accepted by the audience. Shakespeare was capable to use this acceptance as an chance to give female characters sturdy and vital roles. Portia is so powerful of a character, she would have been regarded a devil lady in the eyes of her peers—humor for the boy-girl-boy disguise for the audience of the time. Yet, Shakespeare’s portrayal of Portia and Viola, is heroic in today’s terms. By the mid-eighteen hundreds, Shakespeare’s female characters have been starting to be analyzed. Shakespeare was over two hundred years ahead of his time on gender challenges. While Shakespeare also applied “feminine men” to illustrate the qualities provided to guys were also confined to particular social critique, he focused additional on the roles females played, or had been not socially nor by way of law permitted to play, in the course of his time. Through the will, strength, virtues, and intelligent thoughts of Portia to the will, sweetness and deep need to have for survival of Viola, Shakespeare embraces Androgyny and exposes his personal feminine side for future generations to analyze and feminists to explore.
Robert Kimbrough, in his 1982 essay: Androgyny Noticed Through Shakespeare’s Disguise, supplies many definitions of Androgyny. The definition most fitting to the contemporary time is, “Androgyny is the capacity of a single individual of either sex to embody the complete range of human character traits, regardless of cultural attempts to render some exclusively feminine and some exclusively masculine” (1). Some think androgyny is a secular dream and unattainable, but through structural transform of institutional and social organizations—it can be…