Shakespeare's multi-faceted women

Gwen Herat

LITERATURE: Every year as we celebrate the life and works of William Shakespeare, we also take the liberty to intrude into his private life as a man of his time, far removed from the poet in him. He was born into an era where gay life was discussed behind closed doors and away from womenfolk.

'The Dark Lady' Shakespeare repeats in his sonnets is still to be identified positively. Over the years, she has intrigued and puzzled me and the more I research on this subject matter, the more confused and poorer I become on her identity.

Yet, many assume 'her' to be the 3rd Earl of Southampton who was his patron as well as confidant. Smart dark-looks, gentle and soft-spoken, one should see the clash of personalities between him and Lord Alfred Douglas, (Oscar Wilde's helpless lover) though centuries apart.

They were both patrons of these two literary icons. So, was the Earl of Southanpton referred to as 'The Dark Lady' really a plot by Shakespeare to mislead his readers. In the sonnets, a trace of passion can be discovered as Shakespeare pulls a veil of hidden desire wrought between the lines.

From what we know, Shakespeare in his youth travelled far and wide through the countryside and never a mention about a love or an infatuation with a lass, is recorded.

Shakespeare's unhappy marriage to Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior already pregnant with his child when he was only eighteen years old, was the turning point to despise women as revealed in all his plays.

He loathed them in many ways and daubed his burning passion on his female characters. They were made treacherous, murderous, assassins, greed and power-bound, stupid, unfaithful, crazy, suicidal, homicidal, etc. except a few dignified women.

Contempt and humiliation were the instruments he used through which they saw the downfall of their men.

Distressed emotion

From all this heap of distressed emotion, rose the figure of content; the figure of Southapmton. But Shakespeare had his own philosophy through which he progressed. He also had an agenda; that of drama through which he brought to life the inner feelings he had dialogued in his plays.

All his female characters were dramatised by beautiful young boys. His era may have forbidden young girls to appear on stage but the options were made by him.

He dared the roles of Cleopatra, Ophelia, for example, boys to act when during his time, in some parts of England, young girls were dancing the early stages of ballet on stage.

Academic status

Undoubtly Anne Hathaway was not the wife for his academic status. In common with most women of her class, she did not read or write and may well have been willing to play the role of a house-wife and mother while the Bard wrote and acted in London.

She never had any great hold over his affections and the most one can say about Shakespeare is that he made an honest woman out of her. In later plays, there is evidence of a revolution against irregular sexual liaisons such as found in the Taming of the Shrew.

Anne Hathaway died in August 1623, obscure to the end. Let's take a look at some of his women from his plays, taken at random;

Portia - The witty lawyer from Merchant of Venice whose youthful exuberance made her one of Shakespeare's favourite women characters. The great lady of Belmont, patrician, witty, adventurous was able to prevent Shylock from claiming a 'pound of flesh' from Antonio nor the 3000 ducats he owed him, saying that the bond between them was only a pound of flesh; not entitled to 'one jot of blood'.

The vanquished Shylock, forced to accept all conditions deemed upon him by Portia, agrees to become a Christian and bequeath all his money to his daughter, Jessica and her lover, Lorenzo.

Tamora - Queen of the Goths, perhaps Shakespeare's most wicked, horrible and evil female character where the Bard has personified the very depths of womanhood to its rock bottom in dignity.

Ambition for power, leads her from one massacre to another. A witch incarnated into an empress, only her equally evil lover, Aaron calls her 'this goddess, this Semiranis, this nymph' Tamora who has two sons named Murder and Rape, orders them to rape and cut off the hands as well as cut the tongue of Titus's daughter, Lavinia.

At the end of the play, Tamora is forced to eat the flesh of her sons, baked into a pie. Thus she became both a cannibal and victim of her own deeds.

Ophelia - Child-like innocence, wrapped around her character, Ophelia is the beauty and virtue that Shakespeare saw in a woman. He treats her lightly and with sympathy, placing on her the fresh dew of the morn in their crystal magnitude.

He treats her character with the innocence of a lamb and virtuosity of a blossoming girl unaware of any evil the world holds for her tender love. Hamlet plays on her emotions and drives her to drown herself in a shallow pond.

Essence of youth

Juliet - Why Shakespeare had to make this play a tragedy still remains a mystery. With all essence of youth and young love, crossed between two powerful Houses, that of Capulets and Montagues, the ending could have been happier. May be he saw this as a universal tragedy to pass down the passages of history as the greatest love story whereas Antony and Cleopatra was far ahead in all its ingredients of sacrifice and love.

Juliet remains the symbol of young tragic love to everyone. She was 13 and would have been 14 on Lammas even soon after her death. So intense was Romeo's love for her as he whispered 'O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright'.

On their tragedy-stricken journey to death, they sacrifice their loves for each other at the vault where later, the two houses of Capulets and Monatagues unite over their bodies.

Lady Macberth - A sinister character evolved from the mutterings of three witches who forecasts her husband's troubled life but which Lady Macbeth surpasses for greed and power and becomes a victim of her own treachery.

A cleverly wrought character by the Bard to reveal the rotten side of a woman's mind, she stands out as one of his most gruesome women to lead her husband to a horrible end before she commits suicide that prompts Macbeth to say 'she should have died hereafter'.

His tragic fall and all the murders he committed was due to her plodding. Revenge had to follow and at Dunsinane, Lady Macbeth burdened by guilt, reveals much of her evil doings in her sleep-walking. 'Infected minds... to their deep pillows will discharge their secrets,' says her doctor upon her tormented mind.

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