“More witnesseth than fancy’s images”: Reimagining Gender Roles and Power Structures in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
English
Faculty Mentor
Dr. Amanda Hiner
Abstract
Many critics of Shakespeare’s imaginative comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, have focused on its male-dominated political and social hierarchies (e.g. the patriarchy) and the ways in which they affect the female characters in the play. Additionally, new historical scholars have considered the reign of Queen Elizabeth I as both influential to and implicative of some of the play’s underlying messages about the patriarchy, considering the play as both a product and a reproduction of Elizabethan society at large. What is key to these interpretations, and what much of the criticism on the play appears to lack, is an explicit discussion of the role that binary oppositions have in constructing the gender-specific social norms that Shakespeare brings into question. Keeping in mind that A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an exploration of the extent to which life itself is a work of human imagination like a theatrical performance or a dream, I deconstruct the analogy that feminist critics of the play frequently uphold in their analyses, male:dominant::female:submissive. In turn, I argue that Shakespeare’s work reflects protofeminist ideals insofar that the playwright stresses the importance of imaginary boundaries, or binary oppositions, in the construction of gender roles, thus signifying the instability of the dichotomous relationships that establish social dominance. I further contend that Shakespeare “plays” with and questions the concept of difference, the awareness that the feminine must be defined in opposition to the masculine if either sign can be said to point to a definitive signified outside of the human imagination.
Honors Thesis Committee
Amanda Hiner, Ph.D.; Gloria Jones, Ph.D.; Jane Smith, Ph.D
Course Assignment
Shakespeare, ENGL305, Matthew Fike
Start Date
22-4-2016 1:10 PM
End Date
22-4-2016 1:25 PM
“More witnesseth than fancy’s images”: Reimagining Gender Roles and Power Structures in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
DiGiorgio Campus Center, Room 222
Many critics of Shakespeare’s imaginative comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, have focused on its male-dominated political and social hierarchies (e.g. the patriarchy) and the ways in which they affect the female characters in the play. Additionally, new historical scholars have considered the reign of Queen Elizabeth I as both influential to and implicative of some of the play’s underlying messages about the patriarchy, considering the play as both a product and a reproduction of Elizabethan society at large. What is key to these interpretations, and what much of the criticism on the play appears to lack, is an explicit discussion of the role that binary oppositions have in constructing the gender-specific social norms that Shakespeare brings into question. Keeping in mind that A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an exploration of the extent to which life itself is a work of human imagination like a theatrical performance or a dream, I deconstruct the analogy that feminist critics of the play frequently uphold in their analyses, male:dominant::female:submissive. In turn, I argue that Shakespeare’s work reflects protofeminist ideals insofar that the playwright stresses the importance of imaginary boundaries, or binary oppositions, in the construction of gender roles, thus signifying the instability of the dichotomous relationships that establish social dominance. I further contend that Shakespeare “plays” with and questions the concept of difference, the awareness that the feminine must be defined in opposition to the masculine if either sign can be said to point to a definitive signified outside of the human imagination.
