The “Daughter”/“Niece” Binary in As You Like It
The “daughter” and “niece” archetypes, of course, are not universally applicable to all women in Shakespeare’s comedies. In As You Like It, there are other female characters which defy such classification. Phoebe, for example, exhibits traits of both “niece” (in her willful pursuit of the erstwhile Ganymede) and “daughter” (as when she readily submits to Ganymede’s stipulation that she marry Silvius), while the country wench Audrey cannot easily be assigned to either category. Still, the archetypes once again prove useful in an examination of the relative empowerment of the play’s central female characters, Rosalind and Celia.
On the surface, Rosalind appears to be one of the most independent, and thus empowered, women in any of Shakespeare’s works. Like Beatrice with Benedick, Rosalind is able to dictate completely the terms of her relationship with Orlando; throughout most of the play, he obeys her every whim – and this despite his belief that she is only a simulacrum of Rosalind. In a time when marriage was customarily (judging by the texts) a business arrangement between the groom and the bride’s father, Rosalind actually arranges her own union with Orlando, albeit in disguise (V.iv.5-10); further, she even arranges the marriage of Silvius and Phoebe (V.ii, V.iv.11-25). The dramatic irony of this chain of circumstances, in fact, is the basis for the play’s comedic action: Ganymede, who exerts such control over the lives of others, is really a woman.
It may be contended that Rosalind gets what she wants not because she is a truly empowered woman, but because she poses as a man, and that before adopting this disguise, she has no agency. Duke Frederick, to whom Rosalind is a literal as well as archetypical niece, robs her of control over her own fate when he summarily banishes her from his court (I.iii.39-87). Yet even here we can see that Rosalind already possesses the potential to become empowered. When asked why she is sentenced to exile, the duke replies, “Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not . . . Thou art thy father’s daughter” (I.iii.53, 56). The duke, rightly or wrongly, views Rosalind as a threat, and only an empowered woman would pose a threat to him. Viewed in this light, the masculine disguise only unlocks the latent power that the “niece” archetype already possesses.
Celia, on the other hand, is clearly a “daughter” character. Her sole act of volition in the entire play comes when she determines to join Rosalind in exile (I.iii.83-103), and even this one act of defiance is motivated more by Celia’s loyalty to her cousin than by any desire of her own. When, in the play’s final act, Oliver determines to marry Celia, only Orlando is given any right of decision over her lot (V.ii.1-15); Celia has apparently consented to be wed (l. 7), but is not really a party to the negotiations.
Thus, even while presenting a strong, independent female character, As You Like It seems to reinforce the patriarchal notion of women as subjugated beings. Rosalind exercises some control over her own destiny, but only after she disguises herself as a man; lacking such a guise, Celia is virtually powerless to determine her own fate. But this superficial view is an inadequate interpretation. The Ganymede disguise – indeed, the entire journey to Arden – is the crucible that releases Rosalind’s latent personal power, but the power has always been there; like Kate and Bianca, she has always been a “niece.” Celia remains subjugated not because she chooses to travel as a woman, but because she is, at heart, a dutiful “daughter.”
Conclusion
1.3. Having said about Shakespeare’s comedies we dare to say that it is the most important milestone in the creative activity of him. But even amongst his immortal works of this kind the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” stands in the special play. The first reason of this lies in the period of writing of it. The play is referred to the third, last period of creative activity, it is seemingly summarizes the whole life of the dramatist and the death of the main heroes at the fourth act is a hint for the closest death of Shakespeare himself. So one another reason for the significance of the comedy follows just after: it maybe the only work of Shakespeare where the humour and laughter are being mixed with the tragedy. And this mixing appears on the background of the exact description of humans life and characters which are closely similar to the historic chronicles. In our work we tried to demonstrate this spirit of comedy mixed with the tragedic chronicles of the author himself.
Our work aimed to show the novelity of the play though it was written three-four centuries ago, we tried to prove that even being a dream the narration does not lose the real character. We made our conclusion that fairy tales cannot but link with the real life and the problems of life, love, happiness, sadness, revenge exist in both at the Heavens and the Earth.
2.3. In our qualification work we tried to give some light to the following items:
a) To show the unusual, unique compositional structure of the play on the example of the most significant scenes of each act of the play.
b) To analyze the main themes of the play.
c) To prove the brilliant nature of the Shakespeare’s language.
d) To compare the different features of the main heroes in their controversy and similarity.
Having worked on our qualification work we could do the following conclusion and notes:
1) Being not volumable play it remained in our hearts as one of the most
brilliant things created by the “Avon Bard”.
2) The main idea of the play was to show the interrelations between life and dream, the different state of minds of illiterate but kind and passionate wandering actors and foolish, cruel, envious power “handers”.
3) The main themes of the play are order and disorder, love and marriage, appearance and reality.
4) The genius of the author is concluded in mixing and installation of one narration into another, assistance of prose and poetry with single repliques and comments.
5) The heroes of the play are not happy even having got the things they dreamt.
In the very end of our qualification work we would like to say that the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream ” seems to us as the most meaningful not only for those who is interested in Shakespeare but for the whole humanity.
Shakespeare’s Tragicomedies and women images in them.
The Winter’s Tale (tragicomedy)
Enlightenment and contrition are prerequisite to the happy ending of The Winter's Tale, too. Here again a husband falls victim to vengeful jealousy, and here again the plot builds up to the moment when he can be forgiven the folly that, so far as he knows, has brought about his innocent wife's death. Based primarily on Robert Greene's Pandosto: The Triumph of Time, a prose romance first published in 1588 and reprinted under a new title in 1607, The Winter's Tale was probably completed in 1610 or 1611. Its initial appearance in print was in the 1623 Folio.
The action begins when Leontes, King of Sicilia, is seized with the "humour" that his wife Hermione has committed adultery with his childhood friend Polixenes. It is abundantly clear to everyone else, most notably Hermione's lady-in-waiting Paulina, that Leontes' suspicions are irrational. But he refuses to listen either to the counsel of his advisers or to the oracle at Delphi--persisting with this "trial" of Hermione until he has completely devastated his court. He drives Polixenes away with the faithful Sicilian lord Camillo; he frightens to death his son Mamilius; and he pursues Hermione so unrelentingly that she finally wilts into what Paulina declares to be a fatal swoon. At this point, suddenly recognizing that he has been acting like a madman, Leontes vows to do penance for the remainder of his life.
Years later, after Perdita (the "lost" child whom the raging Leontes has instructed Paulina's husband Antigonus to expose to the elements) has grown up and fallen in love with Florizel, the heir to Polixenes' throne in Bohemia, the major characters are providentially regathered in Leontes' court. Leontes is reunited with his daughter. And then, in one of the most stirring and unexpected moments in all of Shakespeare's works, a statue of Hermione that Paulina unveils turns out to be the living--and forgiving--Queen whom Leontes had "killed" some sixteen years previously. In a speech that might well serve to epitomize the import of all the late romances, Paulina tells the King "It is requir'd/You do awake your faith." The regenerated Leontes embraces his long-lamented wife, bestows the widowed Paulina on the newly returned Camillo, and blesses the forthcoming marriage of Perdita to the son of his old friend Polixenes, the object of the jealousy with which the whole agonizing story has begun.
Tempest (tragicomedy)
The circle that is completed in The Winter's Tale has its counterpart in The Tempest, which concludes with the marriage of Prospero's daughter Miranda to Ferdinand, the son of the Neapolitan king who had helped Prospero's wicked brother Antonio remove Prospero from his dukedom in Milan a dozen years previously.
Like The Winter's Tale,The Tempest was completed by 1611 and printed for the first time in the 1623 Folio. Because it refers to the "still-vext Bermoothes" and derives in part from three accounts of the 1609 wreck of a Virginia-bound ship called the Sea Adventure, the play has long been scrutinized for its supposed commentary on the colonial exploitation of the New World. But if the brute Caliban is not the noble savage of Montaigne's essay on cannibals, he is probably not intended to be an instance of Third World victimization by European imperalism either. And Prospero's island is at least as Mediterranean as it is Caribbean. More plausible, but also too speculative for uncritical acceptance, is the time-honored supposition that the magician's staff with which Prospero wields his power is meant to be interpreted as an analogy for Shakespeare's own magical gifts--with the corollary that the protagonist's abjuration of his "potent art" is the dramatist's own way of saying farewell to the theater. Were it not that at least two plays were almost certainly completed later than The Tempest, this latter hypothesis might win more credence.
But be that as it may, there can be no doubt that Prospero cuts a magnificent figure on the Shakespearean stage. At times, when he is recalling the usurpation that has placed him and his daughter on the island they have shared with Caliban for a dozen lonely years, Prospero is reminiscent of Lear, another angry ruler who, despite his earlier indiscretions, has cause to feel more sinned against than sinning. At other times, when Prospero is using the spirit Ariel to manipulate the comings and goings of the enemies whose ship he has brought aground in a tempest, the once and future Duke of Milan reminds us of the Duke of Vienna in Measure for Measure. But though his influence on the lives of others turns out in the end to have been "providential," Prospero arrives at that beneficent consummation only through a psychological and spiritual process that turns on his forswearing "vengeance" in favor of the "rarer action" of forgiveness. Such dramatic tension as the play possesses is to be found in the audience's suspense over whether the protagonist will use his Neoplatonic magic for good or for ill. And when in fact Prospero has brought the "men of sin" to a point where they must confront themselves as they are and beg forgiveness for their crimes, it is paradoxically Ariel who reminds his master that to be truly human is finally to be humane.
Uniquely among the late tragicomic romances, The Tempest has long been a favorite with both readers and audiences. Its ardent young lovers have always held their charm, as has the effervescent Ariel, and its treatment of the temptations afforded by access to transcendent power gives it a political and religious resonance commensurate with the profundity of its exploration of the depths of poetic and dramatic art. In the end its burden seems to be that an acknowledgment of the limits imposed by the human condition is the beginning of wisdom
Appendix 1
Some quotes from Shakespeare’s comedies
1 As you like it (Act V Sc. I)
JAQUES:
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
Ttranslation:
Жак: Весь мир – театр.
В нем женщины, мужчины – все актеры.
У них свои есть выходы, уходы,
И каждый не одну играет роль.
Семь действий в пьесе той.
2 Much ado about nothing (Act V Sc. II)
CLAUDIO
Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrels; draw, to pleasure us.
DON PEDRO
As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick, or angry?
CLAUDIO
What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.
BENEDICK
Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, and you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject.
Translation:
Клавдио: Этого еще никто не делал, хотя многим их остроумие вылезает боком. Мне хочется попросить тебя ударить им, как мы просим музыкантов ударить в смычки. Сделай милость, развлеки нас.
Дон Педро: Клянусь честью, он выглядит бледным – Ты болен или сердит?
Клавдио: Подбодрись дружок! Хоть говорят, что забота и кошку умудрить может, у тебя такой живой нрав, что ты можешь и заботу уморить.
Бенедикт: Синьор, я ваши насмешки поймаю на полном скаку, если они ко мне относятся:нельзя ли выбрать другую тему для разговора?
3 The Merchant of Venice (Act.1 Sc.3)
Antonio: The devil can gnote Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
Translation
Антонио: Заметь, Бассанио:
В нужде и чорт священный текст приводит.
Порочная душа, коль на святыню
Ссылается, похожа на злодея
С улыбкой на устах иль на красивый,
Румяный плод с гнилою сердцевиной.
О, как на вид красива ложь бывает!
4 Troilus and Cressida (Act III, Scene 2)TROILUS You have bereft me of all words, lady.PANDARUS Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'llbereave you o' the deeds too, if she call youractivity in question. What, billing again? Here's'In witness whereof the parties interchangeably'--Come in, come in: I'll go get a fire.[Exit]CRESSIDA Will you walk in, my lord?TROILUS O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus!Translation
Пандар Язык тут ни при чем. Долг платежом красен. Плохо, если на дело не хватит сил. Так, так... опять уж нос с носом... Отлично... «Когда обе стороны приходят ко взаимному соглашению»... и проч... и проч. Войдите, войдите в двери, а я поищу огня. (Уходит.)
Троил О Крессида! Как долго я томился ожиданьем этого счастья!
5 Much ado about nothing (Act I Sc I)
Leonato:…There was never yet a philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently….
Translation
Леонато: Прошу молчи. Я только плоть и кровь.
Такого нет философа на свете,
Чтобы зубную боль сносил спокойно,-
Пусть на словах подобен он богам
[1]The full list of works and authors is mentioned in bibliography to this qualification paper
[2] Based on: Richard Laws Dutiful Daughters, Willful Nieces: The Empowerment of Women in Shakespearean Comedy Washington University Press 2000 p.45-50