Welham Girls' School

William Shakespeare's illustrious and magnificent tragedies are well-known around the world. The infamous author is regarded as one of the best writers in history. His stories are taught in schools and universities but most times, we don’t realize how irrelevant his concepts are in today’s time. His tragedies were not devoid of the essential elements of misogyny, sexism, and chauvinism, even though his stories are lively and distinctive. In today’s time and world, would you appreciate a story like The Taming Of The Shrew where mental torture and the treatment of women like trophies were seen? Shakespeare frequently showed partiality to his male characters. He always managed to demean his female characters in some way or the other. The women in nearly all of his works were always dependent on and subjugated to the male species. He portrays women as weak, docile, ignorant, and occasionally even witches.

Consider Othello into viewpoint. Desdemona is a timid and gentle beauty who believed she deserved to be strangled by her husband despite the fact that she did nothing wrong throughout the play. Or Hamlet, Ophelia was so loyal and dependent on her father’s command, so caring for Hamlet’s well-being, that she’s so suffocated by feeling that she eventually drowns.

Let's not forget about the infamous shrew. Katherine Minola from Taming Of The Shrew was criticized for her bluntness, intelligence, and her refusal to be dependent on a man. Towards the end, she is shown as a malleable and submissive character, a ‘perfect wife’ to Petruchio who mentally abuses her. Shakespeare, however, disguises it by calling it as love.

Excluding his misogyny, Shakespeare also wrote a lot of pieces that indicated that he was a supporter of child marriage. Let’s take Romeo and Juliet as an example. When the two main characters, Romeo and Juliet, got married, Juliet was barely a teenager and Romeo was almost an adult.

However, there are pieces in which women are portrayed as strong and self-sufficient. Portia from The Merchant of Venice and Lady Macbeth from Macbeth are two examples. However, these are but two in the face of all his other works.

I hope that Shakespeare’s works are appreciated for they are impeccably written and his words are beautifully woven. However, since times and thought processes have advanced, it is unlikely that society will accept contemporary writers producing works with identical features in the near future. Shakespeare is an author whose skill for writing made him popular as he wrote beautiful pieces aligning with then’s life and society. Now towards the main question, my dear readers, to read or not read -William Shakespeare.