Scene 2 From Siegfried By Richard Wagner Essay

While many will agree that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is critically acclaimed to be one of the most entertaining and well-liked pieces that he has written, there tends to be a discrepancy over how the characters in the play are portrayed when it comes to the importance of gender roles. After reading James C Bulman’s article over the Globe’s more recent performance of Twelfth Night and Shakespeare’s original written version, I realized that there are many ways that this famous piece has been portrayed and each has its own pros and cons.

The focus of this paper will be to compare and contrast the works of two playwrights. The works that will be considered are Molière’s The Would-Be Gentleman and Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro. Both considered comedies, Moliere’s is a short play that tells the tale of Monsieur Jourdain, a tradesman who desires to become a gentleman. Beaumarchais’s play, second in the Figaro trilogy, follows the series of event prior to Figaro’s wedding. Figaro and his companions scheme to ensure that his marriage occurs smoothly. Furthermore, the plays are dated 100 years apart from each other, and they deal with the representation of social hierarchy, social mobility, and gender roles in various ways. With that in mind, they become good sources to compare and contrast the changes in society that occurred within those 100 years. This paper will compare both plays to examine how Molière further endorses the social values and ideas of his time, while Beaumarchais’s presents a shift in attitude towards those values and challenges them.

Femininity is a concept whose attributes are contingent on the culture it is in—what one culture may consider typically feminine traits could largely vary from what another culture views as being feminine. While theater can sometimes subvert theses ideals and present women who function in ways that are not typically feminine, theater can often present idealistic representations of women who exemplify that culture’s ideals of femininity. Take, for example, the female characters in both Guan Hanqing’s Snow in Midsummer and Hroswit’s Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins. While both texts come from largely different cultural contexts—Snow in Midsummer was written in thirteenth century China for a general population whereas Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins was written in tenth century Germany as a closet drama—both texts have female protagonists whose rebellions exemplify feminine ideals of the respective cultures.

Gender stereotypes are not a modern notion and as such expectations and limitations have always existed for both men and women. Fortunately women, who have formerly beared great burdens of discrimination, now have very liberated roles in society as a result of slowly shifting attitudes and values. Shakespeare was integral in challenging the subservient role expected of women in the 16th century. Throughout the play, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, women are expressed as powerful characters who behave, speak and live in a way that breaks away from the conformist role of females during the 16th century. Therefore, the submissive stereotype expected of women in Shakespearean time is confronted and defied through

In many of his works, William Shakespeare explores ideas of gender differences and racial tensions. Othello, a play whose characters are judged again and again based on appearances and outward characteristics, is one such work. The protagonist's different ethnic background provides a platform for probing ideas of racial conflict. Similarly, the presence of well-developed yet opposing female characters adds a dimension of gender conflict and feminist views. These seemingly separate themes of Othello-sexual difference and racial conflict-are closely connected because of similar ties of prejudgment and stereotype. The play's treatment of sexual difference and gender roles strengthens Othello's racist tones

In spite of the promise of three weddings to be celebrated, the play concludes on a sour note when Feste, the clown, depicts life as grim, "for the rain it raineth every day" (Act V Scene i). They play’s primary central theme is that of the comic relationships between men and women. Furthermore, it illustrates the traditional, societal notions of “interdependence, and the newly emerging attitudes towards individual choice and personal desire, or as the play puts it, ‘will’” (Malcolmson 163). Although Twelfth Night is a story of love and courtship, nevertheless, it is also a “comedy of gender,” because of its ability to override the traditional Elizabethan notions of the female role through the characters of Viola and Olivia.

The Marriage of Figaro is an opera performed in 1786 in Vienna and remains another one of Mozart’s most prominent works. The opera is notable for its depiction of the increased social status of women and its critical commentary on the aristocracy and social hierarchy of its time, as the Countess and Susanna form a rapport that transcends class boundaries and gender roles. Mozart further raises the issue of aristocratic power while expressing the rights of the bourgeois, as women in the play are further responsible for challenging the social order and standing up for themselves through their physical environment. The Marriage of Figaro is a socially critical piece by its questioning of the upper-class authority and its representation of the

The concept of gender is evolutionary and difficult to define, though it can be argued that traditionally females have been predominantly defined by their desirability, and males by their masculinity. The way a director presents gender in film can either inspire social change and conversation, or alternatively it can further reproduce social norms. In the case of the film’s discussed in this essay, it is clear that Baz Luhrmann captivates a younger audience and intentionally uses actor selection and the presentation of gender to transform a well-worn Shakespearean story into something new and evolved to inspire a younger audience. On the other

   Throughout the length of Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello there is a steady undercurrent of sexism. It is originating from not one, but rather various male characters in the play, who manifest prejudicial, discriminatory attitudes toward women.

    Othello represents a prime example of Shakespeare's ability to develop relationships between the sexes so as to demonstrate those relationships' weaknesses. In Othello, the sexes are divided by misconceptions and ego- centric views of the opposite gender. The men of the play, in particular Othello, maintain a patriarchal, chivalric notion of the sexes, while the women of the play yearn for more involvement in their husbands' affairs. So it is that the thrust of the play emerges from "the opposition of attitudes, viewpoints, and sexes." (Neely 214)

In this time period, women were the objects that men could ogle over, buy, and use to their liking. She ends saying, "Now as then the theater apparatus is geared to profit a pleasure, and overwhelmingly controlled by males" (Diamond 536). This is still happening today. Women get tight fitting or revealing costumes, they parade themselves onstage for people to see. While the theatre has changed and transformed we still have this sexualized female role. This article can help us look at the theatre today because we can take it and use it to analyze more recent works of theatre. A lot of new theatre focuses on being fresh and trendy and while this is great that we are breaking away from the mold, there are still hints of influence from other writers. While both women and men are a big part of the theatre most business people are men, and even though the theatre is an art it is also a business. This article can influence us in the modern day to look at all aspects of theatre and find out what is actually being done and being influenced by old writers or old

Othello, by William Shakespeare is well known for its richness in literary content and elements pertinent to societal ideas. Moreover, women are portrayed in Othello in ways that confirm, but also contradict their treatment in Shakespeare’s time. Both female action and language represent these ideas such as expectations for a wife and expectations for how a woman is to act. That said, there are many other lines spoken by these characters that defy the expectations placed on women at time. Overall, the feminist critical lens allows a reader to understand Othello and the manner in which it is slightly sexist and controversial. This lens allows the reader to observe both discrepancies of how women are treated, and common characteristics found

   Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello features sexism as regular fare – initially from Brabantio and Iago, and finally from Othello. Let us in this essay explore the occurrences and severity of sexism in the drama.

In William Shakespeare’s tragic play Othello there are numerous instances of obvious sexism aimed at the three women in the drama -- Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca – and aimed at womankind generally. Let us delve into this subject in this paper.

The theme of gender separation is often shown in the non-spoken aspects of the play. This is seen before the play even begins. The way the characters are