Power of Men in William Shakespeares The Winters Tale Essay -- Europ

Power of Men in William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale It has been said that in "The Winter's Tale" Shakespeare dramatises the contemporary struggle between masculine and feminine power. In light of this comment, examine the presentation of the relationships between men and women. Despite their many differences, contemporary society is now only beginning to realise their equal and respective roles in society. Since the beginning of time a contemporary struggle for equality has been present between masculine and feminine powers. The biblical stories of creation have often been used as an excuse to mistreat women. The mythical story of "The Garden of Eden" has been used to display women being easily seduced into wrong doing "The woman saw how beautiful the tree was and how good the fruit would be to eat... so then she took some of the fruit and ate it", how women corrupt men into wrong doing "Then she gave some (the fruit) to her husband, and he also ate it," illustrating women being dependant on men and men as dominant leaders going out to hunt for food "made him cultivate the soil from which he had been formed". Also because the male was created first "God took some soil from the ground and formed man out of it" he is often thought as being the perfection of c reation, where as the female is a helper "he formed woman out of the rob (Adam's.)" Â  Even after the Women's Social and Political Movement (WSPU), the work that the women assured responibility for during the World Wars and the feminist movement of the 1960's for women to be equal to men politically, economically and socially, inequality still exists today. The search for equality between sexes began in the early twentieth century with the WSPU and continues to the tw... ...nist Criticism and Shakespeare." London: Cornell Univ. Press, 1985. Mackey Sally and Simon Copper "Drama and theatre studies." Stanley Thornes Neeley, Carol Thomas. "The Winter's Tale: Women and Issue" (1985). Reprinted in the Signet Classic Edition of The Winter's Tale. New York: Penguin, 1988. Pyle, Fitzroy. The Winter's Tale: A Commentary on the Structure. New York: Routledge & Paul, 1969. Richards, Adam and Gerald Gould "Into Shakespeare: a introduction to Shakespeare through drama." London: Warlock Educational publishers (1977) Tillyard E.M, "Shakespeare's last plays." Chatto and Windus Wilson, Dover "Life om Shakespeares England" Cambridge University Press Folger Shakespeare Libary: www.folger.edu/ Internet public Libary- Shakespeare bookshelf: www.ipl.org/div/shakespeare/shakespeare.html Absolute Shakespeare- absoluteshakespeare.com/