The Effects Of Male Chauvinistism On Female Image In Shakespeare’s Tragedies

William Shakespeare (William Shakespeare,1564-1616) is the most importantwriters, distinguished dramatist and poet in European Renaissance. He created lots of splendidfemale images in many of his tragedies which reflect profound thought on the reality life.Based on the female images in Shakespeare six tragedies, this paper, from the feministcriticism perspective, attempts to prove that Shakespeare can not portray female charactersaccurately under the influence of the times as well as their male identity departing and that hehad a certain of male chauvinism in shaping female characters among his works.More than four hundred years, Shakespeare’s works have been interpreted by differentcriticism genres from a variety of angles, where Shakespeare ‘s feminist criticism have beendescribed thoroughly. While the researches that elaborate Shakespeare patriarchalconsciousness affecting the shaping of female images in his tragedy focus on a single or smallnumber of works. This article attempts to interpret the influence Shakespeare patriarchalconsciousness made on the shaping of female images in a more complete system fromdiversify female images.This thesis is mainly divided into three parts: introduction, body and conclusion. Theintroduction part mainly reviewed the important role women played in Shakespeare’s works,and the research achievements of great significance about his feminist criticism, as well as theinnovation of the paper which attempts to reflect fully the influence of the patriarchalconsciousness on female shaping female image.And the creative aspects of this paper is toattempts to reflect fully the influence of the patriarchal consciousness on female imageshaping. The body consists of three chapters. The first chapter mainly outlines the theoreticalbasis. The author expounds the origin and development of feminism from feminist definition,and the influence feminist criticism have on literature, as well as definition and developmentof the male chauvinism and its influence in the literary works. The author points out thatpatriarchal consciousness must be able to be pried in female image shaped by male’s workscombining with feminist perspective of beauvoir, Miller, etc.. The second chapter analyzedthe four types of female image in the six tragedies, and pointed out that Shakespeare’spatriarchal consciousness is mainly manifested in terms of status: female is attached to themale. He advocated the gentle and submissive woman in personality aspects, and femaleshould be controlled by men’s desires, claims and emotions in aspects of fate. The third chapter focused on the reason analysis of patriarchal consciousness existing in Shakespeare’sfemale image. First, it is because the social entrenched patriarchal ideology are inevitablelimitations of the times, second, it is also the results of the relevance of Shakespeare’s owngender and experience, as well as a certain exaggeration of female character in the tragedyportray.The conclusion analyze and summarize the whole chapters, and pointed out thatShakespeare had done his best to reflect real life in his works, but that the era he lived in andhis own sex positions determined his male perspective which made him have a certain ofpatriarchal sense in shaping female images as a consequence.