It is a peculiar feature of Shakespeare's plays that they both participate in and

reflect the ideas of gender roles in Western society. To the extent that they reflect existing

notions about the 'proper' roles of men and women, they can be said to be a product of

their society. However, since they have been studied, performed, and taught for five

hundred years, they may be seen as formative of contemporary notions about the

relationships between males, females, and power.


Derrida was right in asserting that "there is no 'outside' to the text." His claim is that every text is

affected by every other text and every other speech act. As an instance, most of Shakespeare's

plays have traceable sources for their central plots. Representations of gender in Renaissance

drama are tied to their original presentation: "bearing the traces of their history in a theatrical

enterprise which completely excluded women, (these texts) construct gender from a

relentlessly androcentric perspective" (Helms 196). It is the ways in which these texts

reflect or distort the gender expectations of society, either Elizabethan or contemporary,

that is so important.

Comedy that centers on the relationship between conventional couples rather than

on resolution of the situation that keeps them apart is really quite difficult to find in

Shakespeare. Ferdinand and Miranda are so uninteresting as a couple that their chief

                                                  

function seems to be as an excuse for Prospero to exhibit his art. The lovers in Midsummer Night’s

Dream are certainly at their most entertaining when they're in love with the wrong person. It is the

exaggerated character--Falstaff, Petruchio, Paulina, or Cleopatra--or those who step
                                                  
outside the borders of their assigned gender roles--Rosalind, Portia, Viola--who generate

the greatest theatrical and critical interest.

Elizabethan society had a loosely determined set of normal behaviors that are frequently

linked to gender. Despite diffusion of these gender expectations in both time periods (see

Dollimore, Traub), there are definite behaviors that either lie within the constructs of gender or

exceed/transgress patterns accepted as conventional. Through the mechanisms of exaggeration or

transgression, Shakespeare's comedies focus attention on the matter of gender and derive comedy

from the situations created. Characters that are natural representations of their gender do not

contain the same possibilities for comedy.

Beatrice says "O, that I were a man" (Much Ado About Nothing, IV.i.303), implying in

context that her gender has made it impossible for her to act. Other female characters in

Shakespeare do take on male roles, and whether it is because their true identity is hidden or simply

by virtue of their acceptance as non-female, they are able to function in the text in ways

that an undisguised female character could not. Rosalind/Ganymede instructs Orlando in the ways

of love. Viola/Cesario enters Orsino's house and, consequentially, his heart. Portia argues a case

at law; actually serving as a judge in a dispute involving her new husband's best friend. In

assuming a man's role, these women overcome the limitations to which Beatrice finds her sex

subjected.




                                             

When male characters assume feminine characteristics these are seen as an
                         
impediment to action (or inaction is seen as womanish). In Tro. act I, Troilus has not                                                   
taken the field because he is hopelessly in love with Cressida. He describes the experience as

unmanning, as depriving him of his masculinity. When Aeneas asked why he is not in the day's

battle Troilus identifies himself as "this woman . . . / because womanish it is to be from thence"

(I.i.106). He finds he cannot behave as a man should, because a woman exerts an authority over

him. Troilus' weakness is paralleled and emphasized in Ulysses' figuration of Achilles who "Grows

dainty of his worth, and in his tent/ Lies mocking our designs. With him Patroclus/ Upon a lazy bed

the livelong day/ Breaks scurril jests" (I.iii.145-148). Both men are warriors, both are unmanned by

affection. Achilles' dalliance with Patroclus carries with it the additional "signifying burden of the

'unnatural'" (Traub 73), but the trope remains the same. Achilles and Troilus are neglecting their

duties as warriors because of a physical attraction, and in each case it is seen as 'womanish' or

'dainty.' Patroclus himself tells Achilles "A woman impudent and mannish grown/ Is not more

loath'd than an effeminate man/ in time of action" (III.iii.217-219). Achilles is slow to be moved,

however; when he expresses a desire to see the Trojan heroes it is "a woman's longing . . . To see

great Hector in his weeds of peace" (III.iii.237,239). It is only when their objects of desire are

removed that Troilus and Achilles resume their 'manly' duties; Achilles upon Patroclus' death, and

Troilus after the trauma of seeing Cressida with Diomede.
Neither Helen nor Cressida live up to the expectations forced upon them, but they
do not fail to fit the stereotypes of femininity that the Elizabethan stage forces upon
women in general. Cressida has by that point in history become synonymous with female
infidelity, while Helen's status has been more privileged. However, "the Elizabethan
                                                  
theater characteristically calls idealization into question and foregrounds excess" (Belsey
92). Helen is both idealized and the pursuit of her excessive; hence she is unlikely to
escape unscathed in a satirical treatment of the Trojan war.
The contrast between the empowering masculinization of female characters and
the paralyzing feminization of males make the latter more appropriate to a tragedy or a
satire, the former more useful in comedy.
Rosalind speaks several times in ways that display an awareness of her (doubly)
altered gender, for instance linking boys and women as "cattle of this color" (III.ii.414).
In a more radical maneuver 'she' addresses the audience as a male epilogue. "If I were a
woman ... " (AYLI epilogue) not only calls attention to the gap between the gender of the performer
and the gender of the actor, but demands that the audience recognize of the actor as actor. The
tensions set up in the play remain in suspense until Ganymede disappears and Rosalind reappears
near the end of Act V. All the complications surrounding Orlando, Phebe, and Silvius are resolved
as Rosalind gives up her assumption of a man's prerogatives.
It is easy to assume that dominant males in Shakespearean comedy conform to norms of
expectation and behavior, but it is more difficult to determine what those expectations may have
been in the Elizabethan era. Psychologists have examined the development of sexual awareness
as part of identity. Much psychological theory holds that the male child's initial awareness as Other
(than Mother) has to do with a recognition first of separateness and then of difference; arguably
sexual difference. If "the awareness of being a man or a woman--gender identity--coexists with
the awareness of being a separate individual. Part of making that separation is denying the
authority of the females who raised male children during the English Renaissance, and as a
                                                  
consequence abrogating authority to women in later life would represent a challenge not only to a
man's sense of power, but to his very sense of male identity.” (Kahn 9)
If it is the man's part to swagger, roar, thunder, boast, and swear, then Petruchio is
the perfect type of the male. But these behaviors are excessive and "farcical exaggerations of
normal masculine behavior" (Kahn 109). We are encouraged to understand Petruchio’s behavior
as a performance. His initial scene with Kate establishes a basis for understanding his excesses
throughout acts II-IV as part of an act. Later, Petruchio speaks of his acts as performance (IV.i.188-
211), perhaps to assure the audience that they are indeed witnessing a comedy and not something
worse. Barton (in Evans107) argues that this performance is designed to show Katherine the folly
of her excesses, demonstrate to her how shrewishness is intolerable. Petruchio's several allusions
to his military past "bespeak a lifelong acquaintance with masculine violence as a physical
vocation" (Kahn 109). Petruchio's actions are part of a performance but the underlying truth (for
Petruchio) is not that this excessive behavior is undesirable, but that it is undesirable in a woman.
Behavior suited to a man is prohibited in a woman, since she must be complementary to him, not
competitive with him. Petruchio goes too far, to make a point with Kate, but it is because
Petruchio's assertion of his dominance is excessive that an audience is allowed to find it comedic.
The best example of a Shakespearean comedy which depends on the success of a cross-
gender disguise is As You Like It. In order to escape the restrictions of Duke Frederick's court,
Celia declares that she will accompany the banished Rosalind out of the court. They resolve to join
Rosalind's father in the Forest of Arden. Fearing molestation should they travel as two women,
Rosalind proposes to disguise herself as a man because she is "more than common tall" (I.iii.115).
                                                  
realizing that more than cross-dressing is necessary to make her disguise convincing, she
determines to assume "a swashing and a martial outside,/ As many other mannish cowards do"
(I.iii.120-121). Imogen (in Cym) is told by Pisanio that she "must forget to be a woman; change . . .
fear and niceness . . . into a waggish courage,/ Ready in gibes, quick-answer’d, saucy, and/ As
quarrelsome as the weasel" (III.iv.154-159). Imogen hardly has an opportunity to perform her role,
but Rosalind, who has made many of the same choices, maintains hers for the better part of her
time on stage.
Not only are male disguises for female characters exploited for ironic humor and
for the curiously compounded sexual tensions they make possible, they bring to the fore
all the conventional expectations of masculine performance implied by Elizabethan
society. Male disguise for a male character--for such is the over determined performance of
masculinity displayed by Petruchio--similarly highlights those aspects of behavior that
are taken for granted as 'male' when exaggeration does not make them obvious; and
funny.                                              
Works Consulted
Bamber, Linda. Comic Women, Tragic Men: A Study of Gender and Genre in Shakespeare. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1982
Belsey, Catherine. “Desire's Excess: Edward II, Troilus and Cressida, Othello." In Erotic Politics: Desire on the Renaissance Stage. Susan Zimmerman, ed. New York: Routledge,1992
Cook, Carol. "Unbodied Figures of Desire (on Troilus and Cressida)." In Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre., Sue-Ellen Case, ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990
Dollimore, Jonathan. Subjectivity, Sexuality, and Transgression: The Jacobean Connection. Renaissance Drama n.s. 17 (1986), 53-81
Evans, G. Blakemore ed. The Riverside Shakespeare. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974
Kahn, Coppžlia. Man’s Estate: Masculine Identity in Shakespeare. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981
Traub, Valerie. Desire and Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Shakespearean Drama. New York: Routledge 1992