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“All the world‟s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.”
Carolyn Lott
English 252
Emil Dixon
28 May 2011
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Introduction
“In a real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who
cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can
live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.” S. I. Hayakawa‟s quote
resonates in today‟s world. Many feel that literature has nothing to offer them, especially if it
was written by an O.D.W.G. (or Old Dead White Guy), as a high school English teacher once
referred to them. “What can a fictional character teach me about real life?” some ask. Apply
Hayakawa‟s quote to a piece of literature and it becomes clear that literature has much to offer in
terms of life lessons as one relates to the characters and their challenges in it.
William Shakespeare is among the best in this category; he connects with his readers on a
personal level. Phyllis Rackin, a Shakespearean professor at the University of Pennsylvania,
notes that in particular his plays appeal to women because of his “uncanny ability to enter into
[their] minds and hearts and to express their deepest feelings” (72). Although women in the
twenty-first century feel their issues are uniquely their own, a careful examination of the female
characters in Shakespeare‟s tragedies and comedies will show that the problems women faced in
the 16th and 17th centuries are the same as women face today: loyalty crises as seen in Hamlet,
identity confusion demonstrated in Macbeth, and challenging conventions as is shown in Twelfth
Night.
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Loyalty, it seems, can tear us apart. Women often feel pulled in a million directions by
conflicting loyalties. Who comes first: my boyfriend or my father? Is my brother or my king
more important? Do I set my loyalty to them above the duty to myself? These questions are in
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hot debate amongst modern women today. These questions were also on the mind of Ophelia in
William Shakespeare‟s Hamlet. Ophelia is the daughter of the king‟s advisor, Polonius, sister to
Laertes, subject to Claudius, King of Denmark, and beloved of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
Needless to say, she feels torn by the various loyalties she owes to the men in her life: brother,
father, king, and boyfriend.
Ophelia is introduced in the third scene of act I of Hamlet in the midst of a conversation
with Laertes. He is off to study in France and wishes to leave her with some parting advice.
Kenneth McLeish, a distinguished British playwright and translator, commented that in this
scene Laertes speaks to Ophelia as if she were “an empty vessel just waiting to be filled with his
wisdom” (172). He warns her to guard against losing her “chaste treasure” to Hamlet, saying,
“Fear it Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister, / And keep within the rear of your affection” (1.3.33-34).
Ophelia can see the falsity of his words. She replies that he ought not to give her advice as
“ungracious pastors do”, telling her how to get to heaven when they are acting like a “reckless
libertine” in the “path of dalliance” (1.3.47, 49, 50). When he tells her to remember what he has
said to her, in spite of his advice being hypocritical, she displays loyalty to her brother by saying
she will keep it in her “memory locked” (1.3.85).
In this same scene Polonius has some advice to offer his daughter. He calls her a “green
girl” and “a baby” for not seeing Hamlet‟s advances towards her as he sees them, dishonorable
(1.3.101, 105). She tries to defend the intentions of her beloved, but her father will have none of
it. His sternness turns to affection briefly as he explains Hamlet is the Prince and can do as he
will and not suffer the same consequences as she for the same behavior (1.3.124-26). At the end
of his speech, he forbids her from seeing or communicating with Hamlet. Sharon Hamilton, an
AP Consultant to the College Board with a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-
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Champaign, points out in her book, Shakespeare’s Daughters, that Polonius insults his daughter,
dismisses her protests, and gives her orders in an attempt to make her “conform to some
feminine stereotype that reflects well on his „honor‟” (81). But as only a faithful daughter would,
she submits and says, “I shall obey, my lord” (1.3.136).
Claudius sees Ophelia as a “beautiful puppet, not a person” when he decides to use her as
a “pawn in his political intrigues” of understanding Hamlet‟s actions (McLeish 172). He abuses
her allegiance to his position as king and sets her up in the infamous opening scene in act three,
also known as the “Get thee to a nunnery” scene. Hamlet questions Ophelia‟s virtue (“Are you
honest?”), admits that he did love her but then denies it, accuses her of turning a wise man like
him into a “monster”, and finally entreats her, “To a nunnery, go” (3.1.105, 116, 120, 139, 148).
He betrays her trust and treats her with what McLeish calls “callous indifference” (172). This
scene begins her spiral into madness. A professor at Hunter College, Irene Dash, asserts that
Ophelia goes mad because she is caught in the “clashes between the men who govern her life –
brother, father, and beloved” (111). Ophelia‟s conflicting loyalties tore her apart. Her king
betrayed her; her brother abandoned her; her father was killed by her lover who then rejected her.
These feelings, this situation, were not hers alone, but are shared by women today.
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Discovering and realizing who and what governs one‟s identity can also present a crisis
for some women. A married woman may ask if she is defined by her husband. How much
control does he have over her identity? A mother often may feel her role as a caregiver to her
children defines her. Do they make her identity? Is a woman‟s identity unfounded or
misconstrued if she is not a mother, which some consider the quintessential state of womanhood?
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Many women in the current day often ask themselves these same questions. Lady Macbeth, in
Shakespeare‟s Macbeth, also suffers from this identity crisis. She is married to a Macbeth, who
at the start of the play is Thane of Glamis, but is quickly promoted to Thane of Cawdor by the
King of Scotland, Duncan. (A Thane was a Scottish title equivalent to that of an Earl in
England.) The Macbeths have no children. Lady Macbeth perhaps feels an identity crisis because
of her given situation in life.
Lady Macbeth enters the plot of Macbeth in the fifth scene of act one. She has learned of
a prophecy that her husband will be king someday. When a servant tells her that King Duncan
will be staying the night at their castle, she sees it as her husband‟s chance to fulfill the prophecy.
She calls upon the powers of darkness saying, “[U]nsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to
the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty” (1.5.39-41). McLeish states that these lines show the power of
her ambition for Macbeth (135); having no sense of self or children to shape her personality, she
creates one based on her husband. Because of this, she bluntly speaks her mind to Macbeth when
he starts to back out of the plan to murder Duncan:
“I have given suck, and know
How tender ‟tis to love the babe that milks me.
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.” (1.7.54-59)
One of the feminine practical guide books which Suzanne W. Hull cites in Chaste, Silent &
Obedient: English Books for Women 1475-1640 is one which Shakespeare would have been very
familiar with: Baldassare Castiglione‟s The Courtyer, published in 1528 in Italy and translated
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into English by Thomas Hoby in 1561. She states that Castiglione did not think silence a virtue
in females, but rather they should develop the ability to converse freely (32). Clearly,
Shakespeare fashioned Lady Macbeth using this trait!
McLeish goes on to say Lady Macbeth, in this interchange with her husband, transfers
any power she had back to him, “But screw your courage to the sticking place / And we‟ll not
fail” (1.7.60-61). After the murder of Duncan is announced McLeish also points out Lady
Macbeth‟s role decreases in importance; he says that she has given her husband all of her
“psychological power”, or sense of personal identity, which causes her to collapse “like a soft
balloon” (135). Stephen Greenblatt, a renowned Shakespeare scholar, explains that initially after
the murder, Lady Macbeth is in a state of “frozen moral numbness” and experiences “gradual
decomposition” as the play progresses, as she loses more of herself (2559). Some of the
questions posed by Dash may have been the root of this “decomposition”: “Is Lady Macbeth
really a partner or is she primarily a helpmate – helping [Macbeth] to what he wants? Is she a
subordinate with no real power of her own? (160)”. These questions, and others like them,
plague the minds of women in this century, as well as those, like Lady Macbeth, who have lived
in centuries gone by.
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Challenging the conventions can bring with it one of two things: great tribulation or great
liberation. Women today, as they have done for millennia, wish to distinguish themselves from
each other. How does one do this? Hair color or style? Words and deeds? Clothing? This last
case is the one that is the one most commonly used. Shakespeare created a character in Twelfth
Night who used clothing to challenge the conventions of her day and her name is Viola.
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Shipwrecked, she must make her own way in the strange land of Illyria. Believing her twin
brother, Sebastian, dead and with no father to care for her, she assumes a male identity calling
herself Cesario and begins working for Duke Orsino. Her problems with her breeched protocol
begin when she finds herself in love with the man she serves.
Unlike Ophelia and Lady Macbeth, Viola enters the plot of her play very early on, in the
second scene of act one. She formulates her plan to “Conceal me what I am… / For such
disguise...shall become / The form of my intent” (1.2.49-51). Hamilton explains why she does
this, “Viola believes in the women‟s traditional need to be safeguarded by strong male. Yet
because she has been deprived of both her father and her brother, she makes the bold choice of
taking on that role herself” (137). By her own merit she soon becomes Orsino‟s favorite, as an
attending of his points out, “He hath known you but three days, and already you are no stranger”
(1.4.2-3). She is taking full advantage of her new found freedom, as Irene Dash points out (211).
But she soon regrets her actions which have led her to be Orsino‟s confidant as he makes her
woo the Countess Olivia for him, when Viola, herself, would like to be wooed by him.
In scene five of act one, Olivia prepares to “once more hear Orsino‟s embassy” (148). At
first the interchange is business-like between the two: Olivia seemingly annoyed by another
messenger and Viola only there because of her master‟s command.
VIOLA. …I will on with my speech in your praise, and then show you the heart of the
message.
OLIVIA. Come to what is important in‟t, I forgive you the praise.
VIOLA. Alas, I took great pains to study it, and „tis poetical.
OLIVIA. It is more like to be feigned… (1.5.169-72)
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The conversation continues thus until Viola begins to pity Orsino because Olivia declares that
she cannot possibly love him (1.5.231). She can relate to the feeling of despised love, and does
not wish those feelings on Orsino, so she begins speaking to Olivia from her own heart in an
attempt to woo her for her master, thereby saving him from heart break. When Olivia asks
Cesario what he would do if she (Olivia) rejected his (Cesario‟s) love as she does Orsino‟s, the
reply is:
VIOLA. Make me a willow cabin at your gate
And call upon my soul within the house.
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night. (1.5.237-240)
McLeish points out that the “„real‟ Viola speak[s] verse and „trapped‟ Viola speak[s] prose”
throughout the play‟s entirety, as noted in the structure differences of the two quotes offered.
As with most romantic comedies, everything works out in the end. Olivia marries Viola‟s
twin brother, Sebastian, who survived the shipwreck after all. It is revealed to Orsino that Viola
is a woman (5.1.252). He is shocked but admits that he returns her love (5.1.265-66). Dressing as
a man and thereby entering those areas which were considered in the masculine sphere, namely
courtship, Viola was able to win the man she most admired and desired for a husband (Hamilton,
142). Juliet Dunsinberre, M.C. Bradbrook Fellow of Girton College in Cambridge, asserts that,
“Disguise makes a woman not a man but a more developed woman” (233). It is because of the
development, which Orsino sees, that he releases her from servitude and decides to make her his
equal, “Here is my hand. You shall from this time be / Your master‟s mistress” (5.1.313-14).
This proves Phyllis Rackin‟s argument that not every woman during Shakespeare‟s time was
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subordinate, or lesser, than her husband (27). It also proves that sometimes one has to defy
conventions to discover what one wants most out of life, something women of the twenty-first
century can relate to well.
Conclusion
Every type of woman comes to life in a Shakespearean drama. These characters teach
about and demonstrate the complexities of women‟s roles and lives. Some, such as Ophelia,
show the confusion and madness that can ensue from combating allegiances – father, brother,
king, and lover. Others present the case for creating one‟s own identity instead of relying on
another‟s, as in Lady Macbeth‟s scenario. Characters like Viola demonstrate the characteristics
one can develop by defying propriety – wisdom, alertness, confidence, and pride. It was
Shakespeare‟s genius which allowed him to create such well rounded and relatable characters
that his plays were not only popular in his time but have remained popular to this day.
To repeat the quote at the beginning of this essay, S. I. Hayakawa said, “In a real sense,
people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It
is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and
as many kinds of lives as we wish.” Through these relatable female characters, one can live
many lives and gain knowledge by learning from their mistakes and successes. These characters
are diverse, and the issues brought forth by them are relevant today. So, what can a fictional
character teach you about real life? I challenge you to read, to vicariously live a life, and find out
for yourself.
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Works Cited
Dash, Irene G. Women’s Worlds in Shakespeare’s Plays. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University
Press, 1997. Print.
Dusinberre, Juliet. Shakespeare and the Nature of Women. New York: St. Martin‟s Press, 1996.
Print.
Greenblatt, Stephen. “Macbeth.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York:
Norton, 1997. 2555-2562. Print.
Hamilton, Sharon. Shakespeare’s Daughters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2003. Print.
Hull, Suzanne W. Chaste, Silent & Obedient: English Books for Women 1475-1640. San Marino,
CA: Huntington Library, 1982. Print.
McLeish, Kenneth. Shakespeare’s Characters. Studio City, CA: Players Press, Inc., 1992. Print
Rackin, Phyllis. Shakespeare and Women. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.
Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York:
Norton, 1997. 1668-1756. Print.
---. “Macbeth.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 1997.
2564-2617. Print.
---. “A Midsummer Night‟s Dream.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New
York: Norton, 1997. 814-61. Print.
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---. “Twelfth Night, or What You Will.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New
York: Norton, 1997. 1768-1821. Print.