Female resistance to patriarchal ideology: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale Through the lens of Stephen Greenblatt and Alan Sinfield

Abstract

English society was patriarchal at the beginning of the modern era. The extent of masculine conventions in the Elizabethan age shows women as creatures in need of control and dominance by men. Although Elizabeth I was of great power, during her time, women were of little independence, influence and credibility. They were assigned their status via the position their husband or father held in society. Quite ironically, Elizabethan era was an epoch when women were mostly restricted in terms of social, economic and political rights. Society expected them to be wordless and obedient to their husbands. In most of Shakespeare's plays, the contrast between woman and patriarchal ideology has been portrayed. Some women’s opposition to patriarchal ideology in Shakespeare's plays and the aftermath of these tensions in literary work, are considered as the point of contrast between Stephen Greenblatt - one of the main theorists of New Historicism - and Alan Sinfield – a Cultural Materialist. As claimed by Greenblatt, the opposition of women in Shakespeare's plays is ultimately digested by patriarchal ideology. On the other hand, Sinfield and other Cultural Materialists are optimistic about the end of these oppositions in Shakespeare's plays. According to them, the contradiction within the patriarchal ideology is evinced by the presence of some women like Paulina. The present article is a study to usher how a woman's voice challenges a superior ideology.