A Feminist Reading Of Shakespeare's Love Tragedies

Shakespeare is one of the most influential playwrights in the world, whose works evokemassive and various critical analyses, among which feminist criticism is one of the mostimportant critical approaches. This paper devotes to making an analysis of Shakespeare'sthree love tragedies, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Antony and Cleopatra, and the threeheroines'courage and female dignity in fighting against the patriarchal system. In this paper,the author tries to explore how the three heroines with strong female spirit and celebratingwomanhood stand against the patriarchal system in details. Although trapped in a patriarchalsociety in which men hold privileged right to control the speech power, these threecourageous heroines adopt their special ways to attack the unfair conventions. Withintelligence and striking beauty, they break through the traditional ideological conventions of"male authority"and obtain a masterful supremacy over the heroes'heart. Changing women'spassive positions, they break through all barriers for real love and sacrifice their life forexistence and liberation of women in a higher level, which greatly reflects the humanisticspirit in Shakespearean time and women's strong self-consciousness and self-dignity. Bycontrast, dominated by love, the heroes lose their self-control and masculinity. Regarding thelove to be the only meaning of life, they are willing to become the slave and let their loversmaster their fate.For hundreds of years, books and studies on Shakespeare's works have been pouring outall the time from various approaches. And these three love tragedies are also analyzed andcommented on by many scholars from various perspectives. However, it is a pity that most ofdomestic studies focus on the comparative studies between the heroines and some Chineseclassic literary figures, such as comparative analysis between Juliet and Zhu Yingtai,Cleopatra and Yang Yuhuan, While foreign countries pay attention to the discourse analysisand female'weakness.The paper is divided into seven chapters. Chapter one briefly introduces a sketch of thehistorical and biological research of the three love tragedies and the author's point of view. The three heroines, with their wit and courage, surpass the boundary of the images thattradition casts on them.Chapter two is the presentation of the theoretical groundwork—feminism and patriarchy.In this chapter, the author will provide the general information of the development and thestatus quo of feminist theory and point out the natural relationship between patriarchy andfeminism.Chapter three focuses on how Juliet breaks through the shatters of feudal arrangedmarriage. She recognizes her self-consciousness and fights for her own fate to prove herexistence. Compared with Romeo's manliness and immaturity, she powerfully rocks thepatriarchal system. Chapter Four offers powerful evidence to refute the traditional conceptthat Desdemona shows silent submission to her husband by analyzing her inner worldthoroughly. As a humanist, she bravely shoulders her responsibility and revolts againstpatriarchy in her own way. Her death is not a demonstration of her weakness, but representsher fearless struggle against the patriarchal system. Chapter five explores how Cleopatrachallenges the patriarchal prejudices over women's images by her supreme authority incontrolling Antony's fate and forces him to lose the speech power. Her wit and courageousdeath achieve the eternal victory. Chapter six tells us the connections among the threeheroines in their attack on the patriarchal society.Chapter seven concludes the whole paper by reiterating how the three heroines revoltagainst patriarchy so as to highlight the theme. Juliet, Desdemona and Cleopatra are not weakfemales without speech power. They powerfully challenge the patriarchal system and achievewomen's liberation.