#metoo

If Shakespeare Wrote 9 to 5

| astronut1

Happy 9/25! If you’ve never watched the 1980 movie 9 to 5 before, it’s a wonderful classic comedy, and of course, it’s a great way to honor the incomparable Dolly Parton, who played Dora Lee. Today I’d like to discuss the plot and themes of this movie, and compare them to classic Shakespearean comedy.

9 to 5 Music Video

The Plot

  1. Three unappreciated women in the workplace, Violet, Dora Lee, and Judy, hate their boss, a sexist, lying, hypocritical bigot. He not only rules the workplace as a tyrant, he is especially cruel to the women in the office- paying them less than their male counterparts, taking credit for their hard work, harassing the young and pretty ones, and firing them whenever he feels like it.
  2. It gets so bad that our three protagonists imagine elaborate fantasies where they not only kill him in over-the top Shakespearean ways, they also tell him off with delightfully theatrical language.
  3. Through a series of misunderstandings, the boss threatens to arrest all three of them for trying to kill him in real life. They then kidnap him and force him to stay home. Because Hart is so loathsome to deal with, the women take over the office without anyone noticing his absence! The office culture improves, productivity rises, and of course, everyone is treated equally and paid fairly. When Hart escapes and returns to the office, his boss is so happy with the women’s improvements, they promote him out of the office and he is never seen again!

Themes

  1. Not just a ‘chick comedy’- the same dehumanizing nature of capitalism and the unfair concentration of wealth is something everyone with a job can relate to. Just look at the lyrics of Dolly’s song:
    1. Unequal distribution of labor.
    2. Little chance for advancement
    3. Constant anxiety of being fired or demoted.
  2. Women taking over male institutions for comedic purposes is not new- Lysistrata- women take over the Acropolis- mocking the pointless fighting of the Peloponnesian War. Like all comedies, you can see it from two sides- From a liberal lens- the men are so dumb and so obsessed with us that women could easily solve this conflict. From a conservative lens, you could see it as a cruel satire- things have gotten so bad that even a woman could do a better job than the men in power. Likewise- 9 to 5 works both as a progressive ode to women in the workplace, a universal condemnation of unbridled 80s capitalism, and a conservative absurdist look at work- stay in your lane, work up the ladder and eventually you’ll get noticed. I bring this up because that’s how Shakespeare wrote his comedies, criticising institutions but not outright rejecting them.
  3. Sexism is a theme in Shakespearean comedy, especially in Measure For Measure
    1. Angello represents how in patriarchal society, SA and inequality is extremely prevalent, and very hard to fight against.
    2. While Lucio’s infidelity is played for laughs, Isabella’s devil bargain could destroy her life.
  4. Even the anti-capitalism message is a little bit part of Shakespeare. After all, monopoly is very close to monarchy. In addition, Shakespeare lived in a time of economic revolution- (Quote Coriolanus)
  1. Characters
    1. Violet- Strong, trying to succeed in a man’s world. Seems the least traditionally feminine- she has no husband, wears dark clothes, minimal makeup and jewelry, and devotes herself to her work, and has given her time, energy, and creativity to the job. The cruel irony is, even though she subverts her femininity, she’s never seen as anything other than “Hart’s girl.” She’s passed up for promotions, Hart steals her ideas and takes the credit, and even though she is a senior supervisor, Hart forces her to get him his coffee as if she has nothing better to do. Violet is a scathing critique of corporate culture, and she dreams in her fantasy to take Hart’s coffee, and give him a taste of his own toxic medicine. 
    2. Viola- disguises herself as a man and gets a job. She is quickly rewarded and noticed once she hides her identity as a woman. This must have been extremely subversive for the 1600s.
      1. Compare Violet’s “I’m not a girl,” speech with Viola’s “In faith, they are as true of heart as we.”
        1. Both speak of suffering in silence, waiting for a man to notice them. In Viola’s case, she wants her boss, Duke Orsino to realize she’s a woman and fall in love with her, while Violet wants to be treated as a grown woman and an employee. Both speeches are about a man who is blinded by his preconceived notions of what a woman is, and the women eloquently shatter them.
        2. Viola. Ay, but I know—
  • Orsino. What dost thou know?
  • Viola. Too well what love women to men may owe:
    In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
    My father had a daughter loved a man,
    As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
    I should your lordship.
  • Orsino. And what’s her history?
  • Viola. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
    But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
    Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
    And with a green and yellow melancholy
    She sat like patience on a monument,
    Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
    We men may say more, swear more: but indeed
    Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
    Much in our vows, but little in our love.
  1. VIOLET: You gave that promotion to Bob Enright instead of me? I trained him for God’s sake! Oh, so it’s the old boys club. I’m going, but before I do, I have one more thing to say. Don’t you ever refer to me as your ‘girl’ again. I am no girl. I am a woman. W-O-M-Y-N! I’m not your wife, your mother or your mistress. I’m your employee and I expect to be treated equally, with a little dignity and a little respect! Oh, come off it, Doralee. Everyone knows you and Mr. Hart are having an affair.
  2. Violet represents the best of working women, and the worst of how they are treated.
  3. Dora Lee- Pretty, seems like a naive blond country bumpkin. She also appears, (as Violet alluded to earlier), to be having an inappropriate relationship with her boss. In reality, she is another victim of Hart’s cruelty. Because she’s Hart’s secretary, he feels entitled to a relationship with her, (even though both Dora Lee and Hart are married). Even worse, Hart openly flirts and leers at Dora Lee and makes up excuses to ogle and pinch and harass her. Why does she put up with this? First, because she knows how this kind of behavior is encouraged in all workplaces. Secondly, Dora Lee believes that, because of her upbringing and her Christian faith, that sufferance and forgiveness is the best way to handle harassment. The problem is that men like Hart don’t respect Dora Lee’s values, her gender, or even her basic humanity. She is an object to him, and has no other function but to look pretty and do what he says.
    1. Isabella- the nun from “Measure For Measure” in Shakespeare’s darkest comedy, Isabella is a nun who tries to plead for clemency to an unjust judge. He then offers a horrific quid pro quo bargain- he will pardon her brother and save him from execution, but only if she sleeps with him.
      1. Isabella’s speech:
        1. Ha! little honour to be much believed,

And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!

I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for’t:

Sign me a present pardon for my brother,

Or with an outstretch’d throat I’ll tell the world aloud

What man thou art.

  1. Dora Lee’s speech emphasizes her Christianity, (note the use of the term: “forgiving and forgetting”) but makes it clear in no uncertain terms that she NEED NOT, SHOULD NOT, and WILL NOT put up with Hart’s behavior:
  2. DORALEE: What! You’ve been telling everyone I’m sleeping with you! That explains why everyone’s been treating me like a dime store floozy! They all think I’m banging the boss! And you love it, don’t you. It gives you some sort of cheap thrill, like knocking over pencils and picking up papers. I’ve put up with your grabbing and chasing me around the desk, ‘cause I need this job, but this is the last straw! I’ve got a gun out there in my purse and up to now I’ve been forgiving and forgetting ’cause that’s the way I was brought up but I swear, if you say another word about me, I’ll get that gun of mine. And I’ll change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot!
  3. Judy- The new girl. In addition to being an important fish-out-of water, she has the most dynamic arc. She starts as a divorcee with no home, no job experience, and no husband. Her vulnerability makes Hart eager to take advantage of her, like he did Dora Lee. Fortunately, Violet and Dora Lee warn Judy and she quickly makes friends with them.
    1.  Judy disgusted by Hart’s callous and cruelty. This is why her fantasy for doing away with Hart paints her as a fearless hunter, scaring him and destroying him, like he did poor meek creatures whose heads he mounts on his office wall: (just post the youtube video)  
    2. Judy grows from being a broken woman to a strong, valuable ally whose kindness is seen as a strength, not a weakness. Her husband even comes back and tries to get back together with her and, for the first time, Judy stands up for herself and says no. She had an easy out- become a wife and mother again, but finds strength from her friends and realizes she deserves better than him. By the end of the film, she becomes the heart of the team.

Final Speech: 

V: What a rat.

D: What a liar.

  J: What a creep.

D: To think he told everybody

I was sleeping with him…

J: It’s so unfair. Just so unfair.

V: Twelve years of service,

and he shoots me down.

J: We’ve got to do something. He can’t treat people like that.

V: Do? What’s to do? Quit?

D: – I can’t quit.

V: – It’s the same all over.

J: Look, couldn’t we just all get together and complain?

V: – Complain to who?

Let’s face it- We’re in a pink-collar ghetto.

J: Let’s have another drink.

And this: 

  1. To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,

Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,

That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,

Either of condemnation or approof;

Bidding the law make court’sy to their will:

Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,

To follow as it draws!

First off, let’s address the obvious parallels- both Dora Lee and Isabella have been assaulted and harassed and the man’s defense is exactly the same: “no one will believe you.” Both women know that in a patriarchial society society, both the offender and the judge allow this kind of culture of sexual abuse, which leads to a vicious cycle. As Violet points out, all companies have the same attitude towards women, which means that even if they quit, they’ll just find another Hart if they go work someplace else.

What Shakespeare doesn’t mention is that Hart’s view of women is intertwined with his attitude towards his employees- female and male. He has no interest in them other than as objects to improve his wealth and status, which is also true in most companies. Violet’s phrase “pink collar ghetto” refuses to the all-too common practice of putting women  

WWSD- not much- I think I’ve emphasized that 

Podcast Script:

Is Shakespeare Being Canceled?

| astronut1

Thanks to WordPress’ new interface, it’s easier for me to read what other bloggers have to say about the topics I write about. One trend I’ve noticed is the question that’s been boiling underneath the surface of a lot of people in our culture: “Should Shakespeare be ‘cancelled’?” It’s an interesting question and definitely merits discussion.

It is also a question that has some basis reality: Shakespeare was taken off the list of required reading of of schools in New Zealand. In 2007, The American Council Of Trustees and Allumni published a report called “The Vanishing Shakespeare,” about the number of colleges who no longer require English majors to take Shakespeare courses. If you read my post on Romeo and Juliet, you will recall that one of the main reasons why we have Shakespeare as a requirement in American high schools is that he is required reading in many colleges. So this could be part of a trend that extends to primary as well as secondary schools as well.

Many academics, (myself included), are wondering about Shakespeare’s status in education, and whether or not he will continue to be a staple of all English language curricula. So what I want to do with this essay is to ask the question, “Should Shakespeare be cancelled,” as well as”Should he not be cancelled? and “What even is cancelling and how does apply to somebody who is already long long dead now?”

First off, cards on the table: I am a white man, (with a beard), who has been studying Shakespeare for 20 years. I have a very clear bias; I would never advocate for Shakespeare being taken out of any schools. That said, I see merits to parts of the argument, and I do not believe that these teachers who are reexamining Shakespeare’s place in education are inherently wrong. Nor do I believe if that there is no merit to changing the way educators teach Shakespeare in our schools, (more on that later). My point is to write a thoughtful reflection about the nature of Shakespeare as a writer, his status within our culture, his status within the educational establishment, and how changing that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Part One: the arguments for cancelling Shakespeare

When I read the article “Why I am rethinking Teaching Shakespeare In My English Classroom,” by teacher Christina Torres, I noticed a lot of her arguments centered around diversity quotas and simply not having the class time to devote to Shakespeare. This is entirely understandable. Shakespeare has been dead for 400 years, which means language has changed a lot since his heyday.

Shakespeare poses several unique challenges in education. He wrote in an obscure form of poetry that is no longer fashionable. You have to read footnotes. Although 95% of the words he used are still used today, they are used in a very unique syntax. Furthermore, I come to teaching Shakespeare from the perspective of somebody who studied theater, acting, Elizabethan history, and everything that that is required to teach Shakespeare, but many teachers do not. My point is I can understand why a teacher feels that he or she does not have the time, energy, or the learning required to give Shakespeare the space that he so clearly demands.

The question of Shakespeare’s status in our classrooms also raises subtle questions about diversity. Many curricula these days emphasize diverse writers and try to highlight the cultural contributions of women, people of color, and LGBTQ people, and as far as we know, Shakespeare fit into none of these groups.

This educational initiative is a part of the anti racist initiative and I as an educator I am fully on board with this. I love to be in a classroom where Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lorraine Hansberry, Mary Shelley, and Truman Capote share the same shelf is William Shakespeare, but ever since the 18th century Shakespeare and cultural nationalism have been inexorably linked.

Almost since the beginning of Shakespearean scholarship, American and British critics have sought to venerate Shakespeare as the peak of British culture, and thus the peak of human culture as well. It’s not a coincidence that we celebrate National Poetry Month the same month as Shakespeare’s birth and death. Also, even though we don’t know for sure when Shakespeare was born, we celebrate it on April 23rd, St. George’s Day, thus forever linking England’s greatest poet, with its patron saint. George Bernard Shaw, (an Irishman), coined the term ‘bardolotry,’ to describe the treatment of Shakespeare by the English as if he were a god and the evidence is quite damning:

The infant Shakespeare attended by Nature and the Passions (Romney, c. 1791-1792)

Just look at this painting where Shakespeare is portrayed as in the same pose and with the same reverence as the baby Jesus. This reverence carried over to poetry, music, festivals, and of course, to the classroom. As I wrote in My Romeo and Juliet post, since the beginning of American public education, Shakespeare was an indispensable fixture in American schools, and thus, prompting American writers like Mark Twain to grumpily refer to Shakespeare and other classics as “Something everyone wants to have read, but nobody wants to read.”

Countless textbooks refer to Shakespeare as the greatest writer in the English language, and possibly the greatest writer ever. Ralph Waldo Emerson once preached that Shakespeare was: “Inconceivably wise.” The god-like aura around Shakespeare has made him nearly impervious to criticism and English speakers on both sides of the Atlantic have claimed Shakespeare as their gospel. Being an English speaker means having the God-Shakespeare on your side, and if you have God on your side historically speaking, you can justify anything.

“A Discovery Of the Bermudas,” 1610. Thought by many scholars to be Shakespeare’s inspiration for “The Tempest”

The British were keen to elevate Shakespeare to this godlike status partially because it showed that their culture was superior to others. Let’s not forget that Shakespeare’s last play The Tempest is about a man with book learning who goes off and colonizes an island whose inhabitants seem savage and uneducated. If our goal as educators with adding anti racist education is to show that all voices are valid, to highlight the contributions of every ethnic group, and to refute the notion that white culture is in any way superior to any other, then to a certain degree, we must knock Shakespeare off his literary pedestal.

Caliban, Prospero’s slave from “The Tempest”

We also should not a take a blind eye to the anti-POC and mysoginist language in some of Shakespeare’s plays. For instance one line I deeply despise in Romeo and Juliet is the line where Romeo refers to Juliet by saying she “Hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in Ethiop’s ear” (A black woman wearing an earring).

1583/5 – ANNIBALE CARRACCI, PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN HOLDING A CLOCK

This statement contrast beauty, specifically the beauty of white skin, with the “ugliness” of a black woman’s ear. Shakespeare uses this metaphor several times in several plays, establishing white as beauty and black as the aberration.

I bring this up not to say that Shakespeare should be cancelled and hated because of this racially insensitive language, because he’s not the only one who does it. All you have to do is Google “Who’s the fairest one of all?” to realize that for centuries, fair skin, beautiful skin, and white skin meant the same thing. As Dr. Grady says in the video above, having an honest discussion of Shakespeare’s language and his culture’s attitude towards race is an opportunity to teach critical race theory in the classroom, and to teach students to recognize and deplore dehumanizing language, which though poetic to white Elizabethans, is hurtful and dehumanizing to people of color. In short, banning or condemning Shakespeare is counter productive, but examining his language, culture, and politics with a critical eye is a very useful and important exercise.

Part 2 why Shakespeare doesn’t deserve to be cancelled

I’ve established that Shakespeare has connections with some very dark moments in a European history and he should not be celebrated merely because of he was white or because he was British. I believe that Shakespeare’s contributions to the English language as well as drama and the arts still makes him worthy of study by students. As this video from the New York Times shows, students need at least a basic understanding of Shakespeare to understand western culture:

There’s No Escaping Shakespeare: New York Times, 2016.

I believe that, as long as we educators don’t indulge our bardolotrous tendancies, and keep Shakespeare in the context of the period in which he lived, we can still teach him in a way that will benefit our students.

One small way to put Shakespeare in context is very simple: STOP USING THE TERM “RENAISSANCE.” Most scholars now refer to Shakespeare’s time period as the Early Modern Period, not The Renaissance, which was an honorific term that people used during Shakespeare’s time period. The term RENAISSANCE, meaning the rebirth of classical learning and by extention the rebirth of sophisticated European culture, can give the impression that it was only a period of study and artistic achievement, leaving out colonization and racial and political tension. I find Early Modern Period a very useful descriptor because like it or not, Shakespeare’s culture influenced ours, therefore an understanding of him is very much understanding of where we came from. Learning from Shakespeare is like learning from history- we cannot shy away from the mistakes of the past, nor should we flat out reject its benefits.

it should be noted that a lot of the good scholarship in the last to the last 50 or 60 years has been tasked with putting Shakespeare back into his historical context and trying to reclaim his staus as a man of his time. Dr. Stephen Greenblatt of Harvard University helped coin the term ‘new historicism’ which emphasizes learning about the culture of a writer’s time period. To New Historicists (such as myself), Shakespeare is no longer considered a great man of history, but a man shaped by the culture of his time, which is to say a man who had good parts and bad parts much like history itself. This is the approach that I think should be taught in American schools highlighting how Elizabethan culture shaped Shakespeare, and how he shaped our culture in turn.

Comparing Shakespeare to history, especially American history, is very useful in American schools. Like the founding fathers Shakespeare reached towards an ideal. He wrote plays about ideal kingship, even though kingship is a cruel and autocratic system of government. He wrote romances about young lovers who follow the wonderful idea of love at first sight, even though in reality that concept is somewhat rare, and very often fraught with peril. And like Shakespeare, people often ignore the flaws and human failings of the founding fathers too. Look at this mural painting of The Apotheosis of Washington, which still looks down on mortals from the US capital building in Washington DC.

Deifying the First President in 'The Apotheosis of Washington' – Brewminate
The Apotheosis of Washington  Constantino Brumidi, 1865 .

Much like the founding fathers’ document that declares that all men are created equal, we can appreciate Shakespeare’s plays but also be aware of their flaws. Both documents were written by a flawed human being with a very narrow understanding of the wider culture and world in which he lived, but one who did his best to try and write works that would benefit all of mankind. As educators we can teach students to be inspired by this work, and seek to have a greater understanding of “The Great Globe Itself,” with the benefit of hindsight, so they may become enlightened citizens of the world, true Renaissance Men, Women, themselves.

So if I truly believe, (and I do), that Shakespeare is still relevant and has something to say to people regardless of their culture or cultural and racial backgrounds regardless of what time period they were born in and regardless of gender, how then can we teach him in classrooms in responsible and nuanced way?

What to do?

[  ]Give a cultural context to the play you study. A culture that is the direct ancestor of our own, but one that was frought with Colonialism, Casual racism, (especially in language), Sexism, Patriarchy, and Homosexual oppression. Not to toot my own horn, but this is what I tried to do with my Romeo and Juliet Website: https://sites.google.com/d/1iLSGjbllxU-ZwyrUya_xHtjojSCg9pd6/p/12GhgKdJr63wmTcm6TTvkZ-ROmUnALKQi/edit

-Give students the chance to rewrite or reword the more problematic elements, such as Romeo’s creepy stalking of Juliet,

-Highlight Shakespeare calling attention to patriarchial issues: Capulet in Act III, v, Friar Lawrence comparing love to gunpowder. Juliet raging against arranged marriage, etc.

  • Celebrate Shakespeare’s positive contributions to race relations: Othello was the first black hero on the London stage and the role helped generations of black actors get their start in theatre. There’s your modern bardolotry, Shakespeare not as “Inconceivably wise,” Inconceivably woke! You can also look at the proud tradition of color blind casting in Shakespeare’s performance history, such as Orson Wells’ “Voodoo Macbeth.”
  • Do some research on modern productions that translate the themes into a modern concept.
BOOKS : THE LOVERS, AFGHANISTAN'S ROMEO AND JULIET — Home | Afghan Culture Unveiled
Book cover for “The Lovers,” the real-life story of Ali and Zakia, teenagers from Afghanastan, who fell in love in spite of their parent’s religious hatreds.

To sum up- cancelling Shakespeare doesn’t mean vilifying him. It means re-examining his role in our culture, and teaching students to appreciate the benefits, and try to correct the damages that his culture has brought to our own. We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it. As for Shakespeare himself, no amount of legitimate criticism will keep people like me from enjoying his plays. If anything, I appreciate even more the breadth and depth of his writing the more I learn about the culture in which he lived. I like to think that, if Shakespeare knew people would be talking about him in school, he’d echo the way Othello said he wanted to be remembered, to “Speak of me as I am, Nothing extenuate.” And that we heed the words of Ben Johnson in the dedication to the First Folio, when we think of treating Shakespeare as an icon.

Dedication by Ben Johnson in Shakespeare’s First Folio, 1623.

Shakespeare’s Roman Women

| astronut1

Since it’s Women’s History Month, and we just had the Ides of March last week, I thought it might be a good idea to analyze some of Shakespeare’s  female characters in his Roman plays. I’ve talked a lot about the men in Julius Caesar, Titus, Andronicus, and Coriolanus, but haven’t examined the female characters much, so that’s what I’m going do discuss today.

Examining these characters is important because many are based on real Roman women, and Shakespeare’s sources reveal what Roman culture thought about women’s roles. This is particularly relevant to those of you reading this in the west because Roman culture influenced the Elizabethans and they set the foundation for our culture today. Feminist criticism has been much maligned, (and I’m certainly not an expert on feminism), but I do know this: it exists to question the values and conventions of our culture, so we can identify what works and what needs to change to build a more egalitarian society.

When it comes to Shakespeare female characters in general, he challenges the status quo, but also reinforces it: There’s always a character who challenges traditional gender roles like Katherine and Beatrice, but, (with the exception of Twelfth Night), for every one of these there’s also a Bianca or a Hero; characters who embody traditional famine roles and virtues of chastity, meekness, and yes, marriage and childbirth.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Shakespeare’s Roman plays where there are always two female characters and they usually embody opposite views of women’s roles and a woman’s duty to her country and the men in their lives

1. Tamara from Titus Andronicus

Titus was Shakespeare’s first tragedy and his first Roman play. As we shall see, as Shakespeare went through his career we see a more nuanced view of women’s roles and a greater appreciation for women who disdain or challenge patriarchal society. The characters Lavinia and Tamara are perfect examples and counterexamples respectively of traditional feminine roles.

When we first meet her, Tamara is the queen of the Goths- an enemy tribe that Rome has just conquered. Everything about Tamara from her foreign upbringing, to her personality, is a counter-example of what Romans prize in women. She is portrayed as savage and bloodthirsty, motivated by revenge against Titus, (who in the first scene of the play, kills her eldest son. Tamara responds by masterminding the murder of all of Titus’ children. She is also sexually liberated and uses her sexuality to further her revenge. Tamara seduces the Emperor to get him on her side, and gets the Emperor to condemn Titus’ sons to death. Her adultery with Aaron is another way she uses her sexuality to get revenge; she brings ruin the monarchy by cuckolding the Emperor. Thus Tamara’s sexuality and bold personality is framed in the play as an existential threat to Rome itself.

Tamara’s chief and only virtue is her love for her children, as you can plainly see in this scene from the play. Her love for her son Alarbus is why she begs Titus for his life, and afterwards, when he sacrifices Alarbus, Tamara’s love for her son turns into deadly hate to Titus. It is her motherly devotion that makes Tamara simultaneously human, and inhuman. As the play progresses however, Tamara is referred to in increasingly inhuman and savage terms. She dresses up as the goddess Revenge to torment Titus, and after she dies, Lucius, the new Emperor (and Titus’ only surviving son), calls her a “ravenous tiger,” and calls for her body to be thrown to beasts, since “Her life was beast-like.” Tamara is unquestionably the villain- a femme-fatale and a threat to all the Roman characters, but especially Titus’ daughter Lavinia.

2. Lavinia from Titus Andronicus

For the entire play, Lavinia embodies  traditional Roman female virtues, in that she is defined by the men in her life, and her chastity. The Romans actually invented the term castitas to refer to the female virtues of modesty and chastity, that is, only having sex with the man you are married to. Lavinia fits this mold perfectly. She’s a devoted daughter, wife, and sister. When we first meet her, she is a model of duty- greeting her father and asking for his blessing when he returns to Rome, and shedding tears for her brothers that were slain in the war:

In the cruelest and most barbaric scene in all of Shakespeare, Lavinia is raped by Tamara’s sons. Then, to keep her from identifying her attackers, they cut out her tongue and cut off her hands. The mutilation is grotesque, but for Titus, the Romans, and for the Elizabethans Shakespeare was writing for, the cruelest loss for Lavinia was the loss of her chastity. Now that she isn’t a virgin, Lavinia is marked with the opposite of chastity, incestum, or infamy. Even though the rape was not her fault, Lavinia is marked with shame. The Romans took unchastity extremely seriously; they used to punish it by throwing the adulteress to her death off the Tarpeian Rock. As you can see in this video, when a woman who was supposed to live chaste is even suspected of adultery, her very life is now in jeopardy:


When she loses her virginity, Lavinia becomes a silent creature of sadness. She is no longer a person, but a motivation for Titus’ revenge. Even if she hadn’t lost her tongue, she would still have little agency in the plot. This is why Titus kills her; to remove her incestum, and end her suffering.  Lavinia embodies the the cruel truth that women had to face in ancient Rome- once they lose their virginity, they are already dead in the eyes of most of Roman society.

Lavinia’s death scene from Titus, 1999, directed by Julie Taymor.

3. Portia (Julius Caesar)
If Shakespeare only wrote these two  female characters, you might rightly assume that he was a vile sexist, who defines a women’s usefulness simply by her chastity or lack thereof, and who thinks the proper function of a woman is to be quiet, demure, chaste, and obedient. Thankfully Shakespeare created Portia in Julius Caesar, and she defies many of the stereotypes associated with women in Ancient Rome.

Portia marks a turning point in Shakespeare’s Roman female characters as we we go from more ‘traditional’ female characters, to ones who exemplify masculine virtues. Instead of women being subordinates to men’s affairs and keeping out of religion, politics, and the affairs of Roman society, Portia is a character who demands respect, and to share her husband’s dangers. Some ancient sources suggested possibly Portia might have been the one who inspired Brutus to kill Caesar, (more on that later), but in any case Portia is not a character who is subordinate to men, but who demands to be treated as a Roman citizen.

In one of the strangest passages of the play, Portia reveals that she has willingly injured herself by stabbing herself in the thigh. She does this as a way of establishing her tolerance for pain and her desire to be taken seriously by her husband:

Brutus. You are my true and honourable wife,
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart
Portia. If this were true, then should I know this secret.
I grant I am a woman; but withal920
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife:
I grant I am a woman; but withal
A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter.
Think you I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so father'd and so husbanded?925
Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em:
I have made strong proof of my constancy,
Giving myself a voluntary wound
Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience.
And not my husband's secrets?930
Brutus. O ye gods,
Render me worthy of this noble wife!

Romans have always had a connection with blood. Blood is a connection to duty; we owe our lives and our blood to Rome; the Gladiator whose blood honours the dead, the sacrifice of the enemy soldiers in Titus Andronicus, and the blood of the Roman soldier shed in service of the country. Rome is almost a culture that is built on blood. Portia in this gesture makes it clear that she is willing to shed blood just as much as her husband, who of course, will shed blood, (just not his own). In a way, Portia’s wound makes her more heroic than Brutus, because she is willing to suffer for the good of Rome, while Brutus kills for the good of Rome.

Shakespeare’s Roman characters, (male and female), extol the questionable virtue of the noble death. Historically when a Roman conspiracy failed, the conspirators had a choice; they could be paraded back to Rome humiliated and disgraced, or they could kill themselves and show defiance in the face of their conquerors. In some cases suicide was actually encouraged by the conquerors, as it meant that the threat was neutralized. In response, the conquerors would go easy on the wife and children.

Portia kills herself after Brutus is on the run. There could be two equally important reasons why she does this. First, she might be attempting to gain favor with the triumvirate by killing herself, (since she is complicit in the assassination), in the hopes that Anthony and a and Octavian will take pity on a Brutus’ children. It’s also possible that Portia kills herself because with the tide of battle turning, she might be next. Portia might be showing the same sort of resolve their husband later shows when he commits suicide to appease Caesar’s ghost and to defy his enemies the honor of capturing him.

Since Portia has a lot of her husband’s same virtues, the inevitable question I come to is to wonder what if; what if  Shakespeare’s Brutus had a listened to Portia more,what might he have done?

The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, Jacques Louis David, 1789.

This painting by Jacques Louis David depicts Brutus’ ancestor Junius Brutus. We see that he is utterly removed and stoic him in the face of death. He has ordered the execution of his own sons for trying to bring back the monarchy. In the background, Brutus’s wife and daughters are mourning the death of their son and brothers. Men like Brutus, with their Republican ideals, take little stock in the consequence of their actions.

One can only wonder if Brutus had had confided in Portia, would she have condemned his actions, or could she have led him to a more constructive path, that might have a prevented Brutus’ death, and maybe even stopped the coming days of the Empire?

Valumnia (Coriolanus)
In Shakespeare’s later Roman tragedy Coriolanus, we again see a young, chaste woman and an older mother figure, but unlike in Titus, the older Volumnia is much more heroic than the young maid Virgilia. Both show loyalty to Rome and devotion to Coriolanus, but Volumnia is not only a hero, she is in many ways a complete inversion of the Roman mother trope.


Volumnia is fanatically devoted to Rome and its army and like her son. She finds war more beautiful than symbols of peace, especially those associated with motherhood. In Act I, Scene iii, she says that the breasts of the Trojan Queen Hecuba were not as lovely as her son’s forehead when it spit blood in battle. She is an inversion of the traditional motherly character; because of her devotion to Rome and  her son,
she is more outspoken than other women and not afraid to talk back to anyone who questions Rome. In a way she is more of Coriolanus’ general or his father than a traditional mother. Her love of Rome is inextricably tied to her love of her son. She raises her son to be a warrior for the Senate and the people of Rome, exhorting him to either return in glory, or die. Observe this passage where she tells Coriolanus’ wife that she was never proudest than when she sent her son off to war:

Volumnia: I pray you, daughter, sing; or express yourself in a
more comfortable sort: if my son were my husband, I
should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he
won honour than in the embracements of his bed where
he would show most love. When yet he was but
tender-bodied and the only son of my womb, when
youth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way, when
for a day of kings' entreaties a mother should not
sell him an hour from her beholding, I, considering
how honour would become such a person. that it was
no better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if
renown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek
danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel
war I sent him; from whence he returned, his brows
bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not
more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child
than now in first seeing he had proved himself a
man.

Although Virgilia fits the bill of the modest, chaste, and loyal Roman housewife, Volumnia is framed as much more heroic. She even uses her mighty stoicism to save Rome! After Coriolanus rebels against Rome and joins the Volscis, Volumnia gets him to agree to make peace with Rome. She does this by kneeling before her own son; humiliating herself for the good of Rome. This act of self-humiliation changes Coriolanus’ mind. Observe how shocked Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes) is when his mother (Vanessa Redgrave) kneels in this scene from the movie Coriolanus (directed by Ralph Fiennes in 2011).

4. Julia (Antony and Cleopatra) and with Cleopatra

With these final two examples, I’ve chosen two character who, (at face value), resemble Lavinia and Tamara. One is a dutiful, chaste Roman wife, related by blood to the Imperial family. Octavia was beloved throughout Rome for her chastity and kindness, and the citizens were outraged when her husband Marc Antony, abandoned her for Cleopatra, who was seen by many as a murderous, barbarous, lustful and an evil sorceress. However, Shakespeare paints a much more complex picture of Cleopatra, and though Octavia retains her chastity and is praised for her virtue, Cleopatra is unquestionably the star of the show, and ultimately commands more respect, awe, and even sympathy from the audience.

In Shakespeare’s play (and in real life), Cleopatra used her beauty as a propaganda tool. As I mentioned the Game of Thrones post, she deified herself in order to be taken seriously. In the 1st century AD, the system was very much rigged against female authority and so women had to resort to terrible measures in order to secure power for themselves.

If you look at the play again especially near the end, Cleopatra doesn’t come across as a femme fatale, she comes across as a woman who is trying to keep her Kingdom and her son Cesarian safe, and she will do anything to protect him. As the name suggests, Cesarean was Cleopatra’s love child of Julius Caesar, so the entire Roman world wanted him dead, because he was a threat to Octavian’s claim to the throne. To keep her son safe, Cleopatra seduces Marc Antony, hoping a powerful Roman alliance will keep her crown safe, and her son alive. Sadly for her, Octavian would stop at nothing to bring down all threats to his power, including Cesarian and Marc Antony. Arguably, the only reason he married Marc Antony to Octavia in the first place, was that he knew if Antony committed adultery, it would give Octavian the perfect excuse to raise an army and destroy Antony. Cleopatra got caught up in the political machinations of the most powerful and cunning man in the ancient world, and held him off as best she could.

Cleopatra struggles through the whole play to keep Antony, her people, and the situation in Rome under control. Antony never respects her as a queen and treats her like a jealous boyfriend, which is why they frequently get into fights.

However, after Antony’s suicide, the audience sees that Cleopatra also genuinely loved him back, and weeps for him as a wife, not an ally. Yet, quickly she regains her royal composure once Octavian threatens to take her back to Rome in chains. She decides to simultaneously deny Octavian the satisfaction, protect her son, and join her husband in the afterlife with her regal suicide:

Cleopatra: Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me: now no more
The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip:
Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear
Antony call; I see him rouse himself
To praise my noble act; I hear him mock
The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
To excuse their after wrath: husband, I come:
Now to that name my courage prove my title!
I am fire and air; my other elements
I give to baser life. So; have you done?
Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell.
[Kisses them. IRAS falls and dies]
Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
If thou and nature can so gently part,
The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
Which hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still?
If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world
It is not worth leave-taking.

In conclusion, Shakespeare couldn’t go too far against the grain with challenging traditional patriarchal views of women, but in his Roman plays, we see characters who are simultaneously mothers and murderers, chaste and intelligent, citizens and devoted wives. I’m not trying to say that Shakespeare invented feminism, but I do believe his characters remind us that it is folly to try to box either gender into such stale old Roman categories as masculine or feminine. Perhaps we should all aspire to be like Cleopatra, whose infinite variety allowed her to succeed in a man’s world, while still being a wife, a mother, a lover, and a queen.