Fantasies of Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender and Power in Shakespearean Tragedy by Cristina Leon Alfar (review)

Abstract

484 Reviews accounts for 'the mild manner of [Mistress Page's] husband, George Page, who gives the impression of a middle-class man who has married money', and yet at the same time, in arranging for his wealth to skip a generation, the grandfather has 'not only short-changed George Page but [. . .] also deprived his daughter of a certain amount of income, perhaps creating some bitterness and giving Mistress Page reason to think hard about the transfer of wealth' (p. 13). The less speculative chapter on The Mer? chant of Venicethat concludes the book is much more helpful. Its discussion of Portia's prosecution of Shylock and the penalty she imposes (the transferof assets again) leads to some provocative conclusions. Thenegotiatedadjustmentto Shylock's punishment leaves Jessica as a beneficiary, a position she would have enjoyed had Shylock himself engaged in fraudulent convey ancing. And in suggesting that Shylock's 'I am content', which echoes Antonio and Petruchio, is part of public, legal discourse rather than a statement of private belief, Ross provides a more humane reading of the play than is usually the case. The research in both these volumes is prodigious and both benefit from the duodisciplinary skills of their authors: they are fine additions to the developing area of Law and Literature. University of Birmingham Catherine M. S. Alexander Fantasies of Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender and Power in Shakespearean Tragedy. By Cristina Leon Alfar. Cranbury, NJ: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses. 2003. 254 pp. ?36. ISBN o87413 -781-0. Any performer would prefer playing Lady Macbeth to playing Lady Macduff. Lady Macduff is a dramatic role of a woman who is good. Lady Macbeth, in contrast, is a dramatic role of a woman who has all the good lines. In her study of those women in Shakespeare's tragedies who are regarded as evil, Alfar argues fortheir recuperation. Not only does Alfar interrogate what early modern culture regarded as evil, she also argues that the characters regarded as evil women do little more than what is done by other characters, male and female, regarded as admirable. In making her analysis, Alfar focuses Lady Macbeth, Goneril, and Regan as women who 'become evil through a simple double standard, arrogating forthemselves behaviors that would be laudable or at least condoned in men' (p. 25). She also considers such characters as Juliet,Cleopatra, Hermione, and Paulina, characters in three other plays who defyconvention without the sort ofcondemnation that audiences and critics have used in discussions of Lady Macbeth or the Lear sisters. That limited scope creates some difnculty.Alfar has nothing at all to say about the women of Shakespearean history plays, many ofwhom would provide useful instances of strong women who act to take or keep power, nor has she much to say about the women of Titus Andronicus, jfulius Caesar, or Hamlet. (Her omission of Timon ofAthens is understandable, while she does speak brieflyabout Volumnia in Coriolanus.) Aftera short introduction in which Alfar places her analysis in a theoretical frame? work, distinguishing her work from feminist psychoanalytical studies, while acknowledging the strength of Kristeva's idea of the abject, Chapters 1 and 2 turn to a discussion ofconduct books. Again Alfar begins with the theoretical, forshe considers 'female evil as culturally produced out of the patrilineal structure's anxieties about the female body's ability to threaten its investment in prestige and power' (p. 32). After some additional discussion of two historical women, Elizabeth Cary and Queen Elizabeth I, this section concludes with a consideration of Juliet and how her defi? ance of convention becomes acceptable, even admirable, because she acts to achieve romantic love. MLR, 100.2, 2005 485 In Chapters 3-5, Alfar considers in turn the sisters in Lear, Lady Macbeth, and Cleopatra. Goneril and Regan, she argues, are trapped by the pressures on any mon? arch in this period: ifthey behave like tyrants it is because all early modern monarchs are forced by their situation to behave like tyrants on occasion. Lady Macbeth is a differentand altogether more interesting case: in the book's strongest chapter, Al? far argues that Lady Macbeth is a parodic version of the perfect early...