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In her book, Wooing, Wedding, and Power: Women in Shakespeare’s Plays, Irene Dash
argues that modern critics have committed a great oversight in their readings of Shakespeare’s
works. Dash states that traditional readings of these works are flawed, because they focus
primarily on male characters and consider the female characters only minor and flat. She goes on
to argue that these “limited perceptions of a woman’s role” have failed to capture the full
complexity of Shakespeare’s works (Dash 1). In this book, Dash argues that Shakespeare’s
women are both realistic and complex characters which, “grow and develop during the course of
the drama” (1). She goes on to explain that an analysis of these characters is important because,
“their actions spring from a realistic confrontation with life as they learn the meaning of self
sovereignty for a woman in a patriarchal society” (1).
In support of this argument, Dash analyzes the female characters in ten of Shakespeare’s
plays. Through her analysis of the women in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Taming of
the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, The Winter’s Tale, Henry the VI- Richard the III
Tetralogy, and Antony and Cleopatra, Dash depicts Shakespeare’s female characters as having a
strong sense of individuality when challenging the societal norms of femininity. In organizing
her book, Dash divides her analysis of these female characters into three sections: wooing,
sexuality, and power. In each of these sections, Dash analyzes Shakespeare’s dynamic female
characters and their unconventional reactions to societal constraints placed on them by a
patriarchal society.
The first section of Dash’s book focuses on the wooing process and how Shakespeare’s
female characters express a deeper understanding of love and a greater desire for an emotional
relationship than the male characters who woo them. In this section of the book, Dash offers two
unique perspectives of the wooing women through the chapters about Love’s Labour Lost and
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The Taming of the Shrew. In her analysis of a Love’s Labour’s Lost, Dash focuses on the oaths
of love that permeate the play. By comparing the oaths of the female characters to those of the
male characters, Dash expresses an intellectual disparity between the two sexes. She shows that
the men in the play have only shallow views of love, since their love only takes the forms of
idealistic Petrarchan oaths, while the female characters demonstrate a love which is based in
reason. Dash then goes on to offer another view of the wooing process in her analysis of The
Taming of the Shrew. In this chapter, Dash argues that the character of Katherina has often been
misrepresented by modern critics and theatre producers as being an unsympathetic shrew.
However, Dash sees that Katherina is not the shrew that needs to be tamed, but rather a
sympathetic character who struggles to preserve her identity within an unwanted marriage by the
only means she has, her wit. Dash focuses on how the wooing process of Petruchio is not the
taming of a woman, but instead the matching of wits that eventually leads to a common
understanding. In this understanding of the text, Katherina is not portrayed as a woman who has
been broken by a man, but rather one who has learned to successfully play a new game,
marriage.
In the second section, “Sexuality”, Dash focuses on Shakespeare’s female character’s
struggle to express love and sexuality within their social roles as women. In her reading of
Romeo and Juliet, Dash shifts her focus away from the character of Romeo and on to the
heroine, Juliet. Through a close reading of Juliet’s soliloquies and interactions with other
characters, Dash depicts Juliet not as the passive and naïve teenager that modern critics view her
to be, but rather as a maturing women who struggles to demonstrate agency through rebelling
against her limited social role. She exhibits strength in her unwavering pursuit of her lover,
Romeo.
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In her next chapter, “A Woman Tamed”, Dash shifts her focus to a woman who suffers
from the constraints of marriage. In her reading of Othello, Dash traces Desdemona’s tragic loss
of agency as she is slowly instated into the role of the obedient wife. By focusing on
Desdemona’s initial displays of agency when she rebels against her father and challenges
Othello’s authority, Dash demonstrates how Desdemona, a strong willed woman, is silenced by
the social role of wife. She argues that, when one reads with an emphasis on Desdemona, the
true tragedy of Othello is not Othello’s tragic fall, but rather the tragic loss of a women’s agency.
Dash believes that Othello is the study of a woman succumbing to her role as wife, while
Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale creates a portrait of two women who must break away from the
social norm and define themselves. In this section, Dash argues that the female characters of The
Winter’s Tale are women who challenge Renaissance ideals of femininity because they embody
traits that were traditionally associated with the masculine.
In the third section of her book, Dash addresses the role of power in the lives of the
female protagonists. Women in the position of power must balance their sexuality and political
identity in order to survive in a male dominated society. Dash argues that although the powerful
women in Shakespeare’s plays may appear domineering, they are also isolated and powerless in
a world of authoritative men. The duchesses and queens of Shakespeare’s Henry VI-Richard III
Tetralogy must rely on their husbands for power, because without them they are powerless. Since
they rule by fiat, these women are uncertain of the limits of their own power. Married to wielders
of power, the female characters encounter weakness, greed, and incompetence, all of which
question the validity of the system, yet they must be willing to accept these traits. Like the
women of the tetralogy, Cleopatra, of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, also holds an
incredible political power, and must balance her sexual and political identity in order to succeed
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as a female ruler. Although Cleopatra does not rely on a male spouse for political power, she is
still limited by the stereotypes of female behavior and subject to the rules established by the
dominant patriarchy. The males in the play, including her lover, Antony, challenge Cleopatra’s
self sovereignty because they solely view her as a sexual object. Yet, Cleopatra’s self
sovereignty saves her from degradation because she moves with confidence and strategically
plans her political moves with manipulation. In her relationship with Antony, Cleopatra must
cope with Antony’s rejection of mutuality and attempts to suppress her political self when with
him. But, neither character can erase her conscious role as queen.
From her analysis of these female characters, Dash comes to conclusion that
Shakespeare’s women need to be closer examined by literary critics. Dash says, “because these
characters transcend stereotypes, such convenient labels should be eschewed, clues to more
comprehensive portraits should be sought in the text, and old familiar conclusions should be
questioned” (250). Dash concludes her essay by claiming that a closer analysis of these female
characters will result in a deeper understanding of a woman’s plight in society.
Works Cited
Dash, Irene G. Wooing, Wedding, and Power: Women in Shakespeare's Plays. New York:
Columbia UP, 1981.
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