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Hannah Stevens

Shakespeares Leading Ladies: Feminism Within the Plays

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Hannah Stevens

Proposal
__________________________________________________________________
Its arguable that when thinking of Shakespeare and his most famous characters, the first
character that comes to mind is not a female. Shakespeare has a reputation for not being able to
write successful female characters as they are out-shined by their male counterparts. As the outshinning is true, the negativity that surrounds Shakespeares female characters is misconstrued
and not the truth. Characters like Viola from Twelfth Night and Lady Macbeth from Macbeth are
some of the strongest female characters in literature, but they may be pushed aside by the male
roles beside them, in some cases even being portrayed as men within the play (not in the
production) enforcing the view that Shakespeare enforces patriarchy. To offset this criticism,
some contemporary authors have chosen to revise Shakespeare in a way that focuses on the
female characters and their strength in roles such as the main female character Mimi in Saving
Juliet, the reimagined version of Romeo and Juliet. In viewing the play from a feminist lens,
female characters prove to outshine their husbands, boyfriends, or brothers, giving women
readers a heightened reading of the text, and the ability to compare their own life paths and
experiences against what is offered to them through the play.
In high school curriculum, studying characterization is essential to understanding classic
literature, as well as essential in recognizing and relating to the character, but it is understandable
that between translation and dissection of themes, focusing on the easiest character becomes a
priority; this usually lands on the main male character, or the protagonist (who is usually male).
Because Shakespeares female characters are subtly written they get pushed to the back burner,
meant for another day and more time spent on the play; time that may not be there in a modern
classroom. These forgotten characters become minute and give false views on the opinion of
women that the Bard had.
The project that I am proposing will work as a reading guide to a Shakespearean play that
incorporates another paired novel with a strong female character to guide the reader through the
subtle characteristics of the forgotten Shakespearean women characters. My research will work
to defend women in Shakespeares play against a patriarchal reading of them by comparing the
modern rendition of these characters to their historical counterparts. The paired novel is not
meant to replace the original play, but to act as a supplement to further study.
In completing this project, I will have a better understanding of what makes a Shakespearean
leading lady, as well as how her characteristics translate modernly. My audience will also have a
better understanding of the choices Shakespeare made in writing his leading ladies, how they
became forgotten in the reading, and what readers can do to offset this. Both myself and my
audience will have a better understanding of how a feminist lens works to enhance the reading of
a text when reading through the particular lens, both in a modern and classic context.

Objectives:
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I am unable to think of a time in high school when the female characters were referenced in the
classic Shakespearean plays that we read. Juliet was talked about, but usually as a weak
character, completely ignoring her character development and how this affects the choices she
makes. More often than not, after reading verbatim from the text, our attention was turned to a
movie that proved to only disassociate the female characters as the text originally does. As Sarah
Barber offers, the power of a film may shut down the multiplicity of interpretation that we
wish to promote (Baker, 2011). Giving readers the ability to interpret female characters through
another paired novel, allows analysis of both characters in a feminist view, stimulating womens
views of what it meant, both historically and modernly, to be a woman. Feeding a judgement,
through a preconceived notion such a movie adaptation, of this view stunts feminism in a
literature aspectAnalyzing through modern novels gives the greatest successes to this research.
It wasnt until college and in my non-required Shakespeare class that feminist perspectives and
more accurate depictions of women were explored. In focusing strictly on the patriarchal context
of the plays, the female readers can become completely lost, unless they understand the inner
workings of the character and intend to further research feminism in response, but I believe this
to be unrealistic. In researching and creating a reading guide, I will give female readers not only
a text to base their feminist lens off of, but an inside look at the strength of the characters
Shakespeare writes, breaking down the patriarchal walls that contain them.
This research will translate to future research on Shakespearean plays that I wish to do
throughout my college career. As a Women and Gender Studies minor, the feminist lens in
literature is also something that will enhance my future endeavors, and combining the two into
one complete project will give myself and my audience a look into what feminist literature looks
like and how the feminist lens can be applied to classic literature through pairing with modern
literature.

Methods:
Rein-visioning these archaic plays is easy on a surface level, but digging into the feminism
within the play and analyzing it will become more difficult. My research on this subject will
work to open readers eyes to the treatment of women in Shakespeares plays by comparing them
to modern characters. This research will translate into a reading guide, that will lead the reader
through the original text, pointing out characteristics to seek in the reimagined text, and bring the
characters together in a more relatable way. Within the reading guide will be a summary of
passages and an analysis on the strengths of female characters in Shakespeares works,
supporting my thesis that Shakespeare writes strong female characters hidden by their male
counterparts and patriarchal society. My thesis will also work to show a feminist perspective to
Shakespearean plays giving women a new outlook on the works.
Mentioning high school education in my proposal above, may lead to questions as to my choice
in project medium. Considering high school curriculum changes to include paired novels with
the respective play is an option, but one that I chose not to take. As Sarah Barber and Hayley
Esther suggest reading plays from a strictly feminist perspective can prove to alienate young
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male readers who may be less attracted to stories of heroines discovering their girl power
(Baker, 2011). With this in mind, I propose a reading guide in order to allow students to seek out
the information if they so desire. Because the plays are naturally read from a male main character
perspective it might also do an injustice to the original piece to wish to read it strictly from a
feminist perspective. These are the choices I have made for my final project that I believe will
allow me to mold my research into a compatible and successful form.

Timeline:

Task Name

Start

End

Duration
(days)

Complete Proposal

10/20

10/27

Set Up To Meet With Dr. Sassi

10/20

10/26

Collecting/Reading Sources

10/27

11/10

14

Conducting Research

10/27

11/3

Organize Data
First Draft of Project
Draft of Annotated Bib
Progress Report to Dr. Sassi
Final Annotated Bib
Peer Review
Final Revision of Project
Turn in Final Materials for
Approval

10/27
11/3
11/9
11/18
11/10
11/15
11/20

11/3
11/10
11/10
11/19
11/20
11/20
11/23

7
7
1
1
10
5
3

11/25

12/1

Working Bibliography:

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Barber, Sarah and Hayley Esther. Supplementing Shakespeare: Why Young Adult Novelizations
Belong in the Classroom. The ALAN Review. Vol 38, Number 3. Web.
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 5th Edition.
2011. Print

Genovese, Elizabeth Fox. The Feminist Challenge to the Canon. Phi Kappa Phi Forum. (2015):
18-21. Ebsco. Web. Oct. 26th, 2015.
Kaywell, Joan F. Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the Classics. Vol. 3. Norwood
Mass.: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc., 1997. Print.
Kaywell, Joan F. Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the Classics. Vol. 4. Norwood
Mass.: Christopher-Gordon Publishes, Inc., 2000. Print.
Isaac, Megan. Heirs to Shakespeare: Reinventing the Bard in Young Adult Literature.
Heinemann. 2000. Print
Jajja, Muhammad Ayub. Women in Shakespearean Comedies: A Feminist Perspective. Journal
of Educational Research. Vol. 16 No. 2. (2013): 34-44. Ebsco. Web. Oct. 26th, 2015
Safaei, Mohammad and Ruzy Suliza Hashim. Revisionings of Hamlet: The Crux of an
Interpretive Paradigm. Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies. (2012): 2134. Ebsco. Web. Oct. 26th, 2015.
Selfors, S. Saving Juliet. New York: Walker & Company, 2008. Print.

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