"Restrictions on Women Highlighted in Twelfth Night"

             Gender construction is a complicated area: today contrasted with the past, women contrasted with men, and rules contrasted with practice. Knowing and practicing every social rule for each sex is an exhausting and impossible task. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night demonstrates many of these social practices and often questions their authority. Irene Dash discusses many of these social violations in her article "Challenging Conventions: Twelfth Night," as does Jonathan Crewe in his "Introduction to Twelfth Night". Restrictions on women and the interactions of these restrictions with men are emphasized and in some cases still practiced in modern life's social interactions and hierarchies. Womanly dependence on the male figure and social taboos on female initiative are two constructions established and questioned in Twelfth Night; they are exemplified today not only in my own life but in the whole of society.
             Dependence on men is a social theme assumed to have stemmed from biological necessity. Human ancestors likely required males to hunt more than females due to their physical prowess and the rudimentary hunting tools that required it. Today, even as women step forward into roles of power, the idea remains that life in general encourages men to remain the dominant figures. Shakespeare emphasizes this idea in Twelfth Night through Viola, Olivia, and the Duke's actions.
             The characters both accept typically associated gender constructions and defy them; however, Dash suggests it may be significant to remember that the play takes place in Illyria, a mythical land where perhaps gender laws can be represented and bent (217).
             Viola can find a job on her own only if she is a man; to keep herself alive, she must dress, act, and essentially be a man to assure she doesn't require one. However, she in fact displays more socially "feminine" ideals than Olivia, despite her man's dres...

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"Restrictions on Women Highlighted in Twelfth Night". (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 09:47, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/93452.html