Female Imagery in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing".

In Virginia Woolf's novel "A Room of One's Own", Woolf puts forth the argument that "it would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare" (Woolf 60), as women of that time neither had the finances nor the space where they could sit down and write effectively. Along with this convincing argument, Shakespeare's constant portrayal of women as second class citizens lacking in personality cannot be ignored. Even …

…happily emphasises the sexual bias. The male protagonists do not change to achieve ultimate contentment but the female characters can only find it if they submit to their male world. Individuality, for women, does not exist. Their spiritual growth only occurs alongside a strong male. Shakespeare's Elizabethan male perspective is obvious. Works Cited: Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore <Tab/>Evans. Boston: Houghton, 1974. Woolf, Virginia