How does Shakespeare portray women Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

How does Shakespeare portray women - Essay Example Accordingly, the following analysis will detail these nontraditional gender roles and the means by which Shakespeare represented them as a means of qualifying and denoting the forward and visionary thinking that Shakespeare exhibited in terms of women’s role within society and gender roles as they in fact existed; rather than the means by which society determined that they should exist. The first exemplification of this can of course be seen with respect to The Merchant of Venice. Within this particular play, aging mirror, poised, and subservient woman, Portia, is represented towards the beginning of the play. Essentially, Portia is denoted by Shakespeare near the beginning of the play as having nearly no control over her own well-being, her marriage prospects, or overall level of self determinacy. She is nothing more than a prize that is to be one in viewed in very much an objective sense. Says Portia â€Å"I may neither choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike† (Shakespeare 17 a). This resignation to face is adequately represented throughout much of the beginning of this particular play. However, as the play progresses, this character develops a more dominant character and begins to fight and overcome the stereotypes that ultimately constrained so many women within the society that is being represented. Of equal interest has to do with the fact that as long as Portia is under the stewardship of her father’s extraordinarily strict leadership, or resourcefulness, cutting, and quick with this is not represented. However, at such a point that she is able to develop a degree of independence and can express her own will, Portia quickly develops into a character that is a force to be reckoned with and is the only antidote to Shylock’s villainy represented within the play. Further, by flaunting convention, and even disguising herself in the form of a man, Portia reflects the fact that she is

Research Proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 8

Research Proposal - Essay Example Parent-child relationships are frequently distressed by the mental illness of a parent. Uysal, Hibbard, Robillard, Pappadopulos, and Jaffe (1998 as cited in Nicholson, Biebel, Kinden, Henry, & Stier, 2004) discovered that parents with mental disorder were less nurturing; less focused on motivating social skill development, cleanliness, and obedience; and were commonly less involved with their children’s social being than parents without mental illness. Such parenting deteriorations could be related with child problem behavior (Nicholson et al., 2004). In order to situate the research questions in theoretical perspective, several major components of social development framework: the interdependencies of social lives; and the function of human agency in the process of making decision (Reutlinger, 2009), will be considered. A fundamental principle of the social development framework is that the lives of people are interconnected (Reutlinger, 2009). The interrelated lives of parents and children are specifically significant due to the fact that even though children commonly have little say in the decision making of the lives of their parents, the family define the living situations of children considerably by affecting the levels of different social capital resources accessible to children within the family unit (Schmier, 2004). Even though the lives of children are influenced by an array of social institutions external to the family, such as peers, neighborhoods, and schools, the fates and opportunities of family members are strongly interconnected, and families keep hold of a major role in the social development of children (Schmier, 2004). Family arrangement, the prerequisites of abilities and skills by adult family members and the possible rivalry for resources from other family members therefore all facilitate in the construction of the domestic