Female identity in the three lays by Shakespeare: Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream

This thesis aims to analyze the structure of female identity in Shakespeare?s Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night?s Dream. After locating woman in the historical context of the Elizabethan period, it aims to explore the extent to which Shakespeare reflects the common beliefs about womanhood in his age and the question as to whether his female characters are conventional or unconventional according to contemporary norms. The main target of the thesis is to prove that female identity is mostly a male construct and that Shakespeare simultaneously subverts and approves the conventional norms in an ambivalent manner. This thesis includes striking examples from the plays which prove the fact that woman was seen as being subordinate and inferior to men, as reflected in the common stereotypical epithet of `the weaker vessel?. However, at the same time, Shakespeare seems to question this assumption and to project an image of femininity which opens it to debate.