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Heroic Destiny of Shakespeare's Heroines:Courage, thy name is woman!

By Miljan Janković, Vocational Medical School, Zrenjanin

Society has been imposing rules, views and principles on people in order that they should follow

them unquestioningly. Women in such society were left with only two choices: to adjust to such

society or try to change it and thus come out of such a situation. Women did not want to rebel in

order to be equal to men – instead, they wanted to change society that had been created by

men. What they wanted was a new and different world. This is one of many crucial topics that

William Shakespeare dealt with in his works. The main topic he wanted to introduce to the

readers was the existence and the process of “the milk of human kindness” becoming cruelty

and gall. In order to achieve this, William Shakespeare used facts from three sources: he used

Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” – history stories about the world from its creation to the time of Julius

Caesar; he also used Raphael Holinshed’s “The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland”,

which helped him discover the history and past of the British peninsula and Plutarch’s “Parallel

Lives”, a collection of famous Greeks’ and Romans’ biographies that helped him become

acquainted with the governing principles of Rome and Greece. What was crucial is the

development of historical sense on which T. S. Eliot put an emphasis in his essay “Tradition and

the Individual Talent”:

“Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you

want it, you must obtain it by great labour. It involves in the first place the historical

sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to any one who would continue to be

a poet beyond his twenty-fifith year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not

only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man

to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the

whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature

of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order.” 1

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Being a traditional writer by this definition, William Shakespeare showed the process of man’s

change following the course of time – man rejected and gave up his feminine part of the self

only by his wrong choice. Man has been raised to believe that slavery and wars are not wrong,

that people do not marry for love, that civilization is not built on love, truth and justice but on

obedience, role play, costumes and customs. Artists have not been able to accept that, which

made them express their discontent in their art. They are the ones who can reach a different life

but often cannot live in it. In their art, artists become transhumanized. The point of art is thus to

make people aware of what is happening so that people do not make more wrong choices.

Shakespeare shows how wrong choices and changes are made. He first presented it in his

poems “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece”. What is common in these two is that

they both depict how patriarchal society started to gradually reject the Great Goddess, thus

rejecting love and the source of creation. In “Venus and Adonis”, Adonis rejects a woman’s

(Venus’) love and decides to be a hunter, only to be eventually killed by a boar.* Ted Hughes

talks about Shakespeare’s “mythic dimension” and “mythic Equation” in his study “Shakespeare

and the Goddess of Complete Being”:

“An example of what I mean, to anticipate a little, appears in his use of the myth of

Venus and Adonis. Basically, this is the most familiar variant of the myth of the

Great Goddess and her consort, the sacrificed god, the myth of one of the most

widespread and profoundly rooted religions of the archaic world. Shakespeare

appropriates it by adapting it to his peculiar needs, making Adonis a chaste, rational,

moralizing, self-preoccupied young man who rejects the infinite passion of the Great

Goddess.” 2

In the poem “The Rape of Lucrece”, Shakespeare presented the existence of another system of

values – the one composed of beauty and love – which man is not familiar with. He is jealous of

one of the soldiers for keeping Lucrece at home so he decides to go to meet Lucrece who is the

embodiment of new values to him. The only thing he does after he arrives is rape her since he

knows of no other way. This shows that the change has taken place – the father figure presence

which has certainly replaced the woman and has eventually raped and destroyed her, the

Goddess. Ted Hughes also introduces the notion of the Tragic Equation – the opposition

between masculine and feminine principle, which makes basis for Shakespeare’s works.

Hughes argues that the two poems are in fact two phases of a single story where the Goddess

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is destroyed by her beloved in a number of ways (either by raping, rejecting, smothering or

killing). Doing this to her, the beloved destroys in fact himself which causes destruction of Divine

Love; he therefore destroys the human being since Divine Love is its main principle:

“… the prima material of creation and inseparable from it is for Bruno

and, as I shall argue for Shakespeare too, Divine Love – the ectoplasmic or

magnetic, vital substance of the Goddess of Complete Being herself.” 3

Shakespeare showed through these two poems that it was the beginning of woman’s

replacement by man – it was the beginning of patriarchal society where her position was strictly

determined and reduced to her being obedient, silent, chaste and pious. She was not allowed to

act publicly in such society but whatever she did had to be in accordance to the publicly

accepted rules. As Joseph Campbell put it, “mythologies of the goddess mother were radically

reformed, reinterpreted and in large measure even suppressed by patriarchal warrior

tribesmen.” 4 It is also worth mentioning that Ted Hughes warns readers that there are many

trial scenes in Shakespeare’s plays. It is our civilization that is put on trial because it has

degraded, suppressed and destroyed all aspects of traditional associations with the feminine.

Not only in his poem “Venus and Adonis” did Shakespeare examine men who refused women

and became hunters and warriors but in his plays as well. That is how the Western masculine

identity came to being. Ted Hughes emphasized that what was left after the rejection of the

Goddess was aggression, violence and wars. Barbara G. Walker writes in her essay “Women

and Religion” in a similar direction as Ted Hughes; whatever that was associated with the

feminine has systematically been suppressed in the Western civilization – it is patriarchal, not

motherly. Mother Goddess has been replaced by the male Gods: love and tenderness have

been replaced by killing, wars, repression:“There is no doubt that the rampant sexism of western civilization is the product of

its religion. Fathers of the church were bitterly opposed to women, who had been

seen so long as made in the image of the Goddess… St. Augustin said, ‘When you

see a woman, consider that you face not a human being but the devil himself. The

Woman’s voice is the hiss of the snake’… We must realize that ritual bloodletting

was probably not part of the original religion of the Great Mother… Modern

American women are justly proud of the social and political progress they have made

In the last century; but many enlighted women… are still locked into a religious

worldview that cannot serve, and has never served, the feminine spirit.” 5

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This further created society and civilization based on the premise that the most sacred bond

between mother and child is sacrificed, marriage scrutinized, no longer being a matter of love,

women abused and everything else based solely on violence. Children are taught to obey the

rules introduced by the father – the same one who himself broke the sacred mother-child bond

and turned mother into a seduced subject and a puppet, a doll to be played with. Female

characters, like Lady Macbeth – to mention one among many, are not used to be blamed and

put on trial; they are used instead to put civilization on trial because it has created, or better to

say produced, such women, some of whom are also mothers. In order to achieve its perverted

aims, civilization turns women into ideological instruments to function for the good of such

ideology and civilization. In such society, woman’s voice is not heard. Shakespeare therefore

emphasized that the Western civilization is guilty of perverted aims and ideology, not women.

In his drama “Peer Gynt”, Henrik Ibsen showed that it required much time for artists to find and

resist the ideology of patriarchy in order to give way to changes. Emerson, Melville and Stevens

maintain that people do not see reality and do not manage to become real. Ibsen suggests that

the way for salvation and changes lies in woman’s love – woman gives man physical life as a

mother and later she raises his creativity and becomes his wife and lover; it is her embrace

where Ibsen says that Peer reaches the final destination of his wandering, the sense of

belonging and true home. Woman is characterized as the source of feeding and energizing what

is truly human in people. What Ibsen also suggests is that the final goal of life is not the reunion

with the Father but the return to the Feminine. *

“- You have not sinned at all, my dearest boy.

- Where has Peer Gynt been since we last met?

Where was I as the one I should have been,

whole and true, with the mark of God on my bow?

- In my faith, in my hope, in my love.” 6

At the end of the drama, Peer screams and calls Solveig mother and he then lies in her lap as if

to hide. Solveig then sings a lullaby to him.

William Shakespeare emphasizes what happens when man is facing a choice, when he is

confronted with options. What man’s choice will bring is a change. That change will be right if

one has a clear idea in the mind but without it, only a wrong choice will be made. Man has to

choose whether or not to follow love, justice and truth – his basic needs. When people are faced

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with the crucial choice, their inner voice tells them to be true and noble which further reveals

people’s true and original nature; that inner voice will say “Hold!” to people in order not to let

them do something wrong. It is seen in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, when Lady Macbeth’s doubts

about Macbeth’s readiness to perform the act of killing King Duncan rise at the moment when

he is just about to kill the king but hesitates:

“Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o` th` milk of human kindness…” 7

She later still addresses him directly, saying hard words to him:“When you durst do it; then you were a man;

And, to be more than what you were, you would

Be so much more than man. Nor time nor place

Did then adhere and yet you would make both:

They have made themselves,

and that their fitness now

Does unmake you.” 8

That man is good by nature and made bad by making a wrong choice is implied in the scene

when Lady Macbeth addresses directly the dark forces to enable her to perform the deed

herself:

“Come you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;

And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full

Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,

Stop up th` access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

Th` effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature’s mischief!

Come thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry “Hold, hold!” ” 9

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Lady Macbeth is a member of society that rejects women which tells much about such society.

Only male characteristics are cherished there and for that reason she wants to be unsexed. She

wants to change her own nature; she wants to change what nature has originally given her. She

wants to be filled with the direst cruelty, instead of the milk of human kindness which is also

what nature has given her. The reason for this is that society does not run on milk but on cruelty

and gall. What she originally is seems to be the greatest obstacle to her becoming cruel. Her

love, compassion and kindness are in opposition to violence which is related to society and the

male principle. In such society, her female qualities do not and will not bring her far. She thus

wants to kill the woman, the mother, Jesus in herself – to kill what the essence of her being in

fact is.

Although Lady Macbeth is perfectly adjusted while awake, she cannot adjust to society while

asleep. Dreams are what Shakespeare stresses much in his works because they are the

realizations of reality – they tell most clearly what man’s real nature is and what people are by

nature. In her dreams, Lady Macbeth is not a servant of the patriarchal system which has

destroyed her femininity and turned her into its instrument. Having been turned into such an

instrument, she is even ready to sacrifice her child in order to reach her aim, which is exactly

what the system uses her for:

“I have given suck, and know

How tender `tis to love the babe that milk me:

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have plucket my nipple from his boneless gums,

And dashet the brains out, had I sworn as you

Have done to this.” 10

Lady Macbeth knows what it is like to give suck since she was married once before and had a

son. She is ready to sacrifice and violate the most sacred bond and the life’s basic bond even

besides the fact that she knows what it is like to have a child of her own. Again, it is the system

that has made her such a mother; she was not born like that, she is not like that by nature. She

has been corrupted by the culture and civilization; she has been nurtured that way. Lady

Macbeth has adjusted herself to them.

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Unlike Lady Macbeth, there is Lady Macduff who is righteous and the one who has not

destroyed the bond between herself and her child; she is the one who is not unsexed and who,

in fact, does not want to be so. What makes the bond between her and her child strong is true

love. If people know what is good, they are not likely to be abused; if they are perverted from

discovering good, their original nature can be betrayed. It is important that people express the

internal externally – what is really inside of them, their true nature. They should not undergo the

process of adjusting to an unjust society and give up the true self. This raises another prominent

theme – the theme of loyalty; namely, Lady Macduff talks to her son about what a traitor is. Her

words indicate hope within a gloomy civilization based on blind obedience, which eventually

brings this heroine’s life to a tragic end:

“- Was my father a traitor, mother?

- Ay, that he was.

- What is a traitor?

- Why, one that swears and lies.

- And be all traitors that do so?

- Everyone that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.

- And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?

- Every one.

- Who must hang them?

- Why, the honest man.

- Then the liars and swearers are fools…” 11

Eugene Ionesco, a true representative of the Theatre of the Absurd, ridicules also the system in

his play “Macbeth”. What is wrong in the civilization and kingdom is that people turn to wars

(which mark patriarchal civilization) not in order to change the system that is problematic but

only the king and that is the greatest mistake. People do not see that it is the system that has

been corrupting them and in fact make them blind to realize that the king is only a

representative of the system.

An example of the system turning people – especially women – into its instruments in the

modern world as well can be also seen in Terrence McNally’s play “Master Class” about a

renowned and extravagant opera diva, Maria Callas. It is argued that women are seduced and

subjected to the system and the patriarchal regime. Maria Callas wanted to become famous in

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the men’s world; having agreed to almost all conditions in her career, she almost sacrificed her

whole life:

“If I seemed harsh, it is because I have been harsh to myself.

I`m not good with words but I have tried to reach you. To

communicate of something which I feel about what we do as

artists, as musicians and as human beings. The one will not

fall down from the sky if there are no more Traviatas. The

world can and will go on without us but I have to think that

we have made this world a better place. That we have left

it reacher, wiser than had we not chosen the way of art.

The older I get, the less I know but I am certain that what

we do matters. If I didn’t believe that. You must know what

you want to do in life, you must decide, for we cannot do everything.” 12

She would be even ready to sacrifice her child in order to succeed if that were one condition

among many, which brings us back to Lady Macbeth and her readiness to perform the same

atrocity. This is what the system has perverted women into; instead of giving birth to children

and feeding them with the “milk of human kindness”, they are becoming adjusted and ready to

turn it into the “gall”:

“I have news, Ari. I`m going to have your child. I would not insult you by

giving you a daughter… Don’t ask me to do that. What do you mean you’ve

changed your mind? I’ll give up anything, my career eve, everything I’ve

worked for, but not this… Don’t leave me! O child I will never see or know

or nurse or say how much I love you, forgive me. It’s done, Ari.” 13

At this moment, there is a parallel between McNally’s “Master Class” on the one hand and

Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and ”Coriolanus” together on the other – Terrence McNally realizes

the Shakespearean connection. There are moral dilemmas about whether women will become

unsexed, adjusted to society based on blind obedience, cruelty and wars and forget about

mercy, compassion and love. If women are perverted to support destruction and atrocities,

people will be in a great danger because man’s basic needs will be completely lost – love, truth

and justice. Emotions, compassion and sympathy will be lost as well and people will be turned

into blind followers. Terrence McNally puts an emphasis on making a wrong choice and what

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such a wrong choice causes in society. There is the pressure put on women and Maria Callas’

life is used as an example of what has been done to them so far. Maria even tells her students

that a person should commit oneself ultimately to the process of artistic creation and give as

much as possible to achieve an aim. What is wrong about Maria Callas’ deeds and choices in

her life is that she kept repeating the mistakes of the characters she played. She did not use

what she had learned wisely. She followed what was demanded and expected from her but, by

doing that, she just became an instrument of the patriarchal system that destroyed her

eventually as a female.

At one point in the play, Maria says that she was short-sighted; McNally uses this to emphasize

that she was blind to choose correctly instead of making the wrong choice or avoiding it:

“There’s one advantage in being this near-sighted. You don’t have to follow the

conductor…

If you have feelings like Sharon, hide them. It’s that simple. That’s what I did.” 14

Maria ended her class telling her students that “what matters is that you use whatever you have

learned wisely” and to “think of the expression of the words, of good diction, and of your own

deep feelings.” 15 Maria’s wrong choice is represented also through her using music (thus arts in

general) as a weapon instead of something that is supposed to be based on feelings and

emotions and which is supposed to be in touch with that part of man’s being that would guide

him to what he should do – to a good choice.

Repression against women and the process of turning them into the system’s instruments are

seen in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark”. Hamlet is a young prince whose

actions and contemplation together with seemingly endless lamentation over his dead father are

initiated by his mother Gertrude and beloved Ophelia. His father’s sudden and awkward death

and his mother’s hasty marriage to his uncle have caused many doubts and much pain to

Hamlet. Gertrude’s deed made him utter “Frailty, thy name is woman! 16” which was an

overgeneralization that all women were just like his mother Gertrude. What Shakespeare

stresses here is a wrong choice that is made again. Blindness makes people unable to see the

differences and that is what hurts Hamlet most. Gertrude’s hasty remarrying to Claudius is what

makes Hamlet question the whole world. The world could have been a beautiful place but things

became wild. Hamlet compares it to an unweeded garden – something that is completely

opposite to the Garden of Eden; it is a new world that is corrupted and that makes Hamlet

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horrified. It is his uncle who killed his father and married Gertrude. For this reason, Denmark is

an unweeded garden which is full of the things that are rank and gross in nature:

“How weary, flat and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world,

Fie on`t! O fie! `tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this!” 17

Hamlet wonders what has happened to human ability to judge and see the differences. In the

closet scene, Hamlet gives Gertrude two pictures in order to choose between them:“Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave the feed,

And batten on this moor? Have you eyes?

…

What judgement would step from this to this?

Sense, sure, you have,

Else could you not have emotion.” 18

He tries to open her eyes and make her realize that her choice was wrong and to make her see

what she did, which is difficult for Gertrude:

“Look here, upon this picture, and on this,

The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

…

Have you eyes?

…

You cannot all it love.

…

O shame! Where is thy blush?” 19

Hamlet gradually becomes disappointed by man and his world. Such world and man’s society

have made his mother become blind and make a wrong choice by marrying Claudius. “Hamlet”

tells about true loss of the ability to judge and distinguish the good from bad. Gertrude is not the

first one who is not able to choose the good. She is not aware of her wrong choice after

Hamlet’s efforts to make her realize that. It seems that what has happened is the complete loss

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of true values. It further seems that Hamlet is the only one who sees that but instead of others

seeing that as well, they try to see what is wrong with Hamlet himself.

Ophelia is another female character who is under complete control of the system. Even though

she discovers her true love for Hamlet, she has no strength to struggle for it. She is obedient to

her father Polonius who tells her what to do; even her brother Laertes teaches her how to

behave – the two of them being the representatives of the patriarchal ideology:

“Perhaps he loves you now;

And now no soil nor cantle doth be smirch.

…

… but you must fear, his greatness weigh`d,

his will is not his own;

For he himself is subject to his birth:

He may not, as valu`d persons do,

Carve for himself; for on his choice depends

The safety and health if this whole state;

…

Then if he says he loves you,

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it

As he in his particular act and place

May give his saying deed; which is no further

That the main voice of Denmark goes withal.

…

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;

And keep you in the rear of your affection,

Out of the shot and danger of desire.

…

Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,

Unsifted In such perilous circumstance.

…

Marry, I`ll teach you: think yourself a baby;

Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,-

Look to`t, I charge you:

Come your ways.” 20

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Ophelia was raised to be obedient without her own opinion. She was practically demanded to

accept and adopt others’ opinion. Such a bad influence of the system and patriarchal ideology

will eventually bring Ophelia to her own destruction because she will be even demanded to

reject her true love. The fact that she is completely in the hands of patriarchy is proven by the

fact that she would eventually do what she has been told to. It is obvious that men in the service

of the system will always ask (their) women to give up their private feelings and learn to play

roles, i.e. to “wear” costumes ascribed by such a system. Men do this without being fully aware

of it since they are the ones who are following the rules and playing the roles blindly. Within

such a system and society, institutions are not respected or sacred any more – marriage is

abused, love is perverted.

What is possible for the women like Ophelia and Gertrude is that they seem to be made into this

world, but not born there. It is important to say that Gertrude was not born like that – she has

been made and shaped that way by the system and its patriarchal ideology. Ophelia would have

probably become a similar woman like Gertrude eventually if she had not drowned; she would

have still been taught how to act and behave correctly but her way out of such treatment was

her early death. She would be completely turned into an instrument of the patriarchal system as

well as Gertrude was and her femininity would then be utterly destroyed. *

What is indicated in Heiner Muller’s “Hamletmachine”, especially in Hamlet’s answer to

Ophelia’s question “-Do you want to eat my heart? -I want to be a woman.” 21 is that it would be

good if women were just like Hamlet – ready and eager to question everything. Society and the

system would not have such an authority over women to keep them aside and treat them as

dolls – to play with them and expect them to act as desired and wanted. Hamlet is not satisfied

with society and he wants to be a woman – to change his sex and not to be a man in a blind,

patriarchal, authoritative society which is based on obedience and wrong ideology of war.

Shakespeare’s “Othello, the Moor of Venice” brings a prominent and outstanding heroine,

Desdemona. She is a person who is slightly different from other female characters in

Shakespeare’s plays for she is the one who does not obey the rules of the system and does not

make a wrong choice about her love. She remains devoted to her love for Othello even if that

means not to be loyal to her father Brabantio. He even blames her for disobedience:

“O treason of the blood!

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Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters` minds

By what you see them act.” 22

Desdemona does not even then give up her love for Othello because her love is what is

ultimately important to her. She made Othello, a soldier, a member and servant of the

patriarchal ideology and system based on war, discover love:

“O my soul`s joy!

If it were not to die,

`Twere now to be most happy;

for, I fear,

My soul hath her content so absolute,

That not another comfort like to this

Succeeds in unknown fate.” 23

Desdemona does not see Othello’s blackness but looks much deeper behind the façade, into

his mind. She saw his visage in his mind – not skin – not believing that he was a black man

outside in attempt to become white inside. This love is however dangerous not only for the

reason that it is unconceivable for a woman to fall in love with a black man but for a more

important reason – it destroys prejudices on which an unjust society is based, one such being

bribable Venice. Within such society, institutions are not sacred, as mentioned; marriage is not

respected, which is proven by Rodrigo’s readiness to pursue his love for Desdemona, a married

woman. Desdemona is, on the other hand, a person who still respects marriage. She discovers

that her love is a real value in (her) life. She is ready to pursue it even though it means breaking

basic norms and rules of the system:

“My noble father,

To you I am bound for life and education;

My life and education both do learn me

How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;

I am hitherto your daughter but there’s my husband,

And so much duty as my mother showed

To you, preferring you before her father,

So much I challenge that I may profess

Due to the Moor my lord.” 24

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After having been wrongly accused of having an affair with Cassio, Desdemona went through a

difficult period trying to find what was wrong since Othello had been tricked in fact by Iago. This

made Othello see her not as his joy any more but as weed:

“O thou weed,

Who art so lovely fair,

and swell`st so sweet,

That the sense aches at thee,-

would thou hadst ne`er been born!” 25

Desdemona did not give up her love even at that moment but instead still had faith in her strong

love:

“Unkindness may do much;

And his unkindness may defeat my life,

But never faint my love.” 26

Desdemona eventually dies but that does not prove that she has failed also as a female. She

remained loyal to her self and her true love. Her disobedience to patriarchal society brought her

life to a tragic end due to her choice not to let herself be shaped by the system’s ideology. She

died in a completely passive way; she was smothered with a pillow by her beloved’s hand – no

chance to neither speak nor breathe.

What Shakespeare is interested in is a battle for what truly matters in life; a battle with Turks

with which the play opens is foreshadowed by a crucial battle, a battle for true love. Dedsemona

fought for her true love which made her a true warrior. She discovered true love which further

discovered real virtues and values. She was raised in a patriarchal society just like other women

but she still managed to make a good and right choice. She remained determined to listen to

her inner voice even if it would bring her to death, even if that would be the price of her real

love.

There is also Emilia, a neglected, unloved woman of the poorer background than Desdemona.

She admits that women do betray their husbands but also knows very well who has taught them

to do that and how to do that. She is the one who knows what revenge is; that is what her

husband Iago has taught her, being an evil person, a member of the patriarchal system through

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whom it is seen clearly what society is like. Emilia is therefore a victim of the system that has,

actually, taught Iago in which way to teach his wife Emilia. What such an ideology does to

women is make them become just like Emilia – completely subdued and subjected.

In Paula Vogel’s play “Desdemona: A Play about a Handkerchief”, she writes about freedom for

women and what has happened to it lately, what society has done to it. She stresses that

women are not given any options; they cannot go beyond culture because it has created them

and ascribed them roles. Desdemona thought she had married a black man, the one different

from the white, destructive man and his civilization. What hurt her most, actually, was the fact

that Othello had internalized ideas and views of the white civilization.

What seems to be important in society is a class – there are three women: Bianca, an

unscrupulous woman, Emilia, an uneducated Irish and Desdemona, an upper-middle class lady

(called “ma’am” by Emilia). Although there are some differences among women in the play

according to this “classification”, they still share the same destiny. It is important that it does not

matter whether a person is of an upper-middle class or not because, basically, one is limited by

a tiny circle of possibilities that women have been left with. Besides turning women into

instruments of a system, there is further on a master-slave relationship which can be also

applied to this woman-system relationship. Again, patriarchal, imperial civilization is guilty for

this. Women can only move within limitations set by society. Paula Vogel shows how such

society is corrupted and how in such society institutions are not sacred any more: it was

marriage in Shakespeare but apart from that, church and family relations do not seem to be

sacred here as they used to be. During their conversation, Desdemona and Emilia talk about

Desdemona’s cousin Ludovico and their excess in church:

“Ah Emilia, I should have married Ludovico after all.

There’s a man who’s always known the worth of ladies of good blood!

A pearl for a pinch, a broach for a breast, and for a maiden-head…

Ah, that was a lover!” 27

Speaking of the conditions that befell women in imperial, patriarchal societies, it is necessary to

mention the case of Frances Farmer, an American actress, for the reason that what has been

done to her represents the ultimate step which was taken by an imperial society in the history of

manhood. What has been done to her clearly shows what society was able and willing to do if

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adjustment was not done as expected. Frances Farmer underwent the process of lobotomy

performed on her publicly. Lobotomy symbolizes what modern, patriarchal, imperial society

uses to make people comfort and adjust, aiming at cutting the emotion flow. Frances Farmer

expressed her emotions and that was what cost her life. She realized what Hollywood was and

what lurked behind the façade. She realized the mechanisms and principles on which imperial

society ran, and still does, and that made her break the contract with it. That was however the

greatest offense to an imperial ideology, to the American Dream. Consequently, her mother, an

adjusted and completely comforted woman, decided to send her to a mental institution since

she assumed that something was definitely wrong. That was only a prelude to what was

awaiting Frances Farmer; after having been given the treatment there, Frances faced the act of

lobotomy. Society wanted her to be a speaker of the patriarchal culture, not a sayer of her own

thoughts and feelings. What she did will probably never be forgiven and forgotten by the

imperial ideology.

There is a parallel between this case and Steve Tesich’s play “On the Open Road”. There are

Angel, crucified for having emotions and compassion, and Al, a “lobotomized” person, through

whom the whole society is seen. Al believes that people should not save or love others since

there is no motive for that and even the Monk kills Jesus for not having given people the motive

to love:

“You,who speak of compassion. Have you no compassion for us. Don’t You understand?

We can’t do it, Lord. We cannot love one another the way You see us doing in Your

vision.

We need a motive not free will to love and we have found none, and You have given us

none,

and I suspect none is forthcoming. It torments us, this thing we cannot accomplish.

This personal vision of Yours we cannot realize.” 28

To make a slight digression, in Adam Curtis’ documentary series “The Trap”, it is suggested that

society is based on distrust and self-interest, meaning that people are only interested in gaining

more, no matter the means, where freedom stands for the process of getting as much as one

can get. If people had compassion and love for others, they would never achieve their aims and

get what they wanted. In such society only cry, agony and pain are present and felt. But, what is

truly important is that people learn how to concentrate on and cooperate with the world around

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them and love without a single motive given in advance. At the end of the play “On the Open

Road”, Al and Angel are both crucified on the open road, a new road bringing new possibilities.

Looking at the shadow on the ground, what they see is not a crucified man but a man with his

arms wide spread, an image of what he can possibly be if he unmakes his wrong choice.

Instead of a crucified man, there is a man who is free to love and embrace the world, a man

who has made a good and right choice. Such man is not exclusively full of aggressive instincts;

if he turns to aggression and destruction, then it is society what has made him do that – the

cause lies in society and its war ideology itself. Such society can only produce individuals

without their inner voice to tell them “Hold!” That way, people will be led to the land of “the free”

but that land would be only free of morality, true emotions, love and compassion where Jesus

inside would be killed.

Shakespeare’s female characters are careful, witty and intelligent; they are ready and willing to

complete their tasks and quests; they are open for transformations of various kinds – from being

simply masked to being even unsexed; they struggle for their own freedom and selves through

patriarchal society that has ascribed different roles to them. Besides, they still remain

passionate but methodical, rational and clever, attempting to overcome traditional male

archetypes. Their deeds and speeches are based on their wisdom and will to independence and

individuality that guide them towards something which is not simple to discover – a different kind

of world and one’s true self. For this reason, Shakespeare raises high above the typical and

traditional views and definitions of women, presented mostly as passive personas. Initiatively

oriented, female characters take actions and responsibilities. They oppose in a greater or lesser

degree to civilization that has created them; as Trilling suggests, one sees who is weak if one is

ready to oppose. Modern literature is a kind of such opposition. If one is ignorant, one is actually

controlled and led by a wrong ideology. It means that the main goal of literature should be to

open man’s eyes and make people wonder what could make their lives profound.

“Literature offers itself to our understanding in many ways. Of these not the least

important is that which takes literature to be an intellectual discipline having to do

with appearance and reality, with truth. The truth we especially expect literature to

convey to us by its multifarious modes of communication is the truth of the self, and

also the truth about the self, about the conditions of its existence, its survival, its

development…[…] a loss of accurate knowledge about the self it is possible to observe

in our own culture at this time.” 29

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Trilling argues that there is an established order within society but in order to fit into such a

system, people have to throw away a part of their beings, which would only mean giving up the

essential portion of the self without which life is nothing but separated from its true meaning.

Trilling suggests an escape from such oppressive society, not adjustment to it – adjusting to an

unjust society will be exactly the wrong choice. But if one is educated, one can see other

options and is aware of something beyond culture. In his work “Freud: Within and Beyond”,

Trilling suggests that society does not teach people so well about the self and the others – it is

literature that is a medium which can conceive with the others even more than culture. He

further suggests that an ideal society should be based on tolerance, democracy, order and

peace but these four basic principles are however betrayed. Trilling insists that individual self is

the test of culture and that the literature and art are supposed to make us aware of the

particularity of the self and its authority over society and culture. What modern society tends to

form is a universal, uniformed personality using the two methods – coercion and seduction.

Society tries to impose a certain idea of the self on people which would best fit the system’s

patriarchal ideology. Modern literature judges and estimates such society. It is a writer who can

always look deeper and provide us with more knowledge of the self, not statesmen. Moreover,

as Freud suggests, there is a portion of a human being that cannot be formed by the culture. It

is a kind of natural portion – people are not only a part of culture but a part of nature. Trilling

talks about Freud’s analyses:

“Now Freud may be right or he may be wrong in the place he gives to biology in

human fate, but I think we must stop to consider whether this emphasis on biology,

correct or incorrect, is not so far from being a reactionary idea that it is actually

a liberating idea. It proposes to us that culture is not all-powerful. It suggests that

there is a residue of human quality beyond the reach of cultural control, and that

this residue of human quality, elemental as it may be, serves to bring culture itself

under criticism and keeps it from being absolute.” 30

It is not rare that many characters choose death eventually: death destroys the man but the idea

of death saves him, it can save people from the omnipotence of culture. It is crucial not to forget

to question society and its ideology that tends to turn people into its instruments to achieve the

planned, however perverted, aims. Also, people should always question the steps they take and

attitudes they form and realize whether there are ideas imposed by society that are in firm

opposition to people’s moral sense. A possibility of people’s overcoming such situations will

come if and when they start to learn that their sufferings are not the only alternative. The

19

moment people realize that other possibilities to be human and to organize society do exist,

even though not directly given at moments, will be the moment they are encouraged to believe

that people will not forever live in a society that would only limit their freedom, rights and whole

life. Women would not be then the way they are, they would not probably be the instruments

and dolls in male’s hands because patriarchal ideology would not be making them so. The first

step towards overcoming such imposed conditions will then be the rejection of revenge, hatred,

and selfishness and introducing love and compassion. Moral orientation is what originally makes

people human; without it, man is nothing more but destroyed. People should try hard not to lose

it because possessing morality is the key to a worthy and meaningful life. Georg Lukacs talks

about man’s potentials when confronted with a choice:“Situations arise in which a man is confronted with a choice; and in the act of choice

a man`s character may reveal itself in a light that surprises even himself. In literature,

the denouement often consists in the realization of just such potentiality, which

circumstances

have kept from coming to the fore. These potentialities are, then, “real” or concrete

potentialities. The fate of the character depends upon the potentiality in question,

even if it should condemn him to a tragic end… Only actual decision reveals the

distinction.” 31

He argues that man is a being with the potentials for both good and evil. He is therefore able to

choose between the two. The choice he makes when confronted with different options is what

does determine his character. That is the choice that Shakespeare wants to present and

describe in his works. He also attempts to present people what, why and how something has

been lost due to a wrong choice man has made and how it can possibly be regained. The first

step towards recovery of what has been lost would be becoming fully aware of the loss and the

wrong choice. Barbara G. Walker’s words from her essay “Women and Religion” may serve well

as a reminder of what people should strive for in order to keep it in mind as their main guideline

if they want to be saved:“There is no doubt that the Goddess image induces more tolerant, peaceful, caring

societies than the God image, whose worshippers usually tended toward war, violence,

a puritanical hierarchy.”

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Bibliography:

Bogoeva-Sedlar, Ljiljana, “On Change”, Prosveta, Niš, 2003. godine;

Campbell, Joseph, “The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology”, Penguin,New York, 1976;

Curtis, Adam, “The Trap”, The BBC2, 2002;

Curtis, Adam, “The Century of the Self”, The BBC2, 2002;

Eliot, T. S., “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, The Oxford Anthology ofModern British Literature, Oxford University press, 1973;

en.wikipedia.org

“Frances”, A Booksfilms Production, Emi, 1992;

G. Walker, Barbara, “Women And Religion: Sexism And The ChristianTradition”, speech, delivered on December 6 1997 in Tampa, Florida,www.ffrf.org/fttoday/jan_feb98/walker.html;

Hughes, Ted, “Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being” (theIntroduction), Faber, London, 1992;

Ibsen, Henrik, “Peer Gynt”, en.wikipedia.org;

Ionesco, Eugene “Macbeth”, Premiere January 27 1972;

McNally, Terrence, “Master Class”, Methuen, 1997;

Muller, Heiner, “Hamletmachine”, 1977;

Shakespeare, William, “Venus and Adonis”, “The Complete Works ofWilliam Shakespeare”, Wordsworth Editions Limited, London, 1996;

Shakespeare, William, “The Rape of Lucrece”, ibid;

Shakespeare, William, “Macbeth”, ibid;

Shakespeare, William, “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, ibid;

Shakespeare, William, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, ibid;

Shakespeare, William “The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice”, ibid;

Tesich, Steve, “On the Open Road”, Applause Theatre Book Publishers,New York, 1992;

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Trilling, Lionel and Lukacs, Georg from “Literature, Culture, Identity:Introducing XX Century Literary Theory”, Lena Petrović, Prosveta, Niš,2004. godine;

Vogel, Paula, “Desdemona: A Play about a Handkerchief”, written in 1979,first stage reading in October 1987.

*****

Miljan Jankovic graduated from the University of Nis, Faculty of Philosophy, in 2008; he was

granted a scholarship by the Municipality of Zajecar during his studies; he is interested in

language studies, seminars, interactive learning, writing and research in the field of his

profession; he attended numerous seminars in order to improve his professional skills to make

further progress in his career; he has worked in a number of schools which helped him develop

strong interpersonal skills and level up his know-how.