Gender in Shakespeares As You Like It :: Shakespeare As You Like It Essays

Gender in As You corresponding It   One of the most intriguing aspects of the treat custodyt of love in As You Like It concerns the issue of gender. And this issue, for obvious reasons, has generated a special interest in recent times. The principal reason for such a thematic concern in the profligacy is the cross dressing and role playing. The central love interest between Rosalind and Orlando calls into question the conventional wisdom about mens and womens gender roles and challenges our preconceptions about these roles in courtship, erotic love, and beyond. At the heart of this courtship is a very complex ambiguity which it is difficult fully to appreciate without a production to refer to. merely here we have a man (the actor) playing a woman (Rosalind), who has dressed herself up as a man (Ganymede), and who is pretending to be a woman (Rosalind) in the courtship game with Orlando. Even if, in modern times, Rosalind is not played by a young male actor, the th eatrical derision is complex enough.   The most obvious issue raised by the cross dressing is the relationship between gender roles and clothes (or outer appearance). For Rosalind passes herself off slow enough as a man and, in the process, acquires a certain freedom to move around, give advice, and associate as an equal among other men (this freedom gives her the power to initiate the courtship). Her disguise is, in that sense, much more significant than Celias, for Celia remains female in her role as Aliena and is thus generally passive (her pseudonym meaning Stranger or outsider is an interesting one). The fact that Celia is largely passive in the Forest of Ardenne (especially in contrast to Rosalind) and has to confront for life to deliver a man to her rather than seeking one out, as Rosalind does, is an interesting and important difference between the two friends.   These points raise or so interesting issues. If becoming accepted as a man and getting th e freedom to act that comes with that acceptance is simply a matter of presenting oneself as a man, then what do we say about all the enshrined natural differences we claim as the basis for our different treatment of men and women?