The relationship between fathers and daughters is a powerful source of Shakespeare’s plays, which he chose to explore in great depth. By focussing on Shakespeare’s dramas "Cymbeline", "Hamlet", "King Lear" and "Othello", I will try to examine the complex and provocative relationship between fathers and daughters.
These literary works provide four different father-daughter relationships between Cymbeline and Innogen, Polonius and Ophelia, King Lear and Cordelia and Brabantio and Desdemona. The plays have in common that they take up the stories at the point at which the daughter is moving out of the sphere of her father’s control and starts to become independent.
The topic will be introduced by considering the historical background, which will help understand the situation of women at Shakespeare’s times and the cultural dimension of the relationship a woman had to her father. Following this, on the basis of Shakespeare’s dramas I will explore the challenges that daughters had to face by considering the fathers’ responses to transitions in her life like marriage. How do daughters handle the situation of leaving their fathers for the commitment of marriage and filial obedience? Are the fathers ready to release their daughters into adulthood?
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Elizabethan Society as a Patriarchal Society
2.1 The Renaissance Background
2.2 Parents and children in this period of time
3 Family Relationships in Shkaespeare’s plays
3.1 The reactionary father in Cymbeline and Othello
3.2 The egocentric father in King Lear
3.3 The mercenary father in Hamlet
3.4 The jealous father in Hamlet and Othello
4 Conclusion
Works Cited
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