Reading Shakespeare’s ‘The
Winter’s Tale’ through
FEMINIST THEORY:
Simone de Beavoir
and Luce Irigaray
Simone de Beauvoir
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray
• Born 1930, from Belgian parents.
• French feminist, philospher, linguist,
pyschoanalyst, sociologist and cultural
theorist.
• Best known for: Speculum of the Other
Woman (1974) and The Sex Which Is Not One
(1977).
Woman as ‘Commodities’
• One of Irigaray’s ideas is that woman are
‘commodities’.
• She says “Woman is traditionally a use-value for
man, an exchange value among men; in other
words, a commodity.”
• She claims that under patriarchal society women
are bought, sold and traded between men.
• In groups, discuss examples of how Hermione,
Paulina and Perdita are treated as ‘commodities’.
Germaine Greer
• Germaine Greer (1939) Australian academic and an important
feminist.
• Her book ‘The Female Eunuch’ (1970) was highly controversial
and became a best-seller.
• Her other books include Sex and Destiny: The Politics of
Human Fertility (1984); The Change: Women, Ageing and the
Menopause (1991); Shakespeare's Wife (2007); and The
Whole Woman (1999).
• Greer has defined her goal as “women’s liberation” rather
than “equality with men” - the rights of women to define their
own values and determine their own fates. Rather than to
seek equality with men - which would mean assimilation
(adapting to the customs and attitudes of men)
Germaine Greer
• Page 45 the idea of ‘masquerade’ and being a
‘transvestite’. Do you think any of the female
characters in ‘The Winter’s Tale’ would
sympathize with this idea?
• Page 46 the myth of the “eternal feminine”,
first introduced by Simone de Beauvoir. Do
you agree with her? How could you apply this
idea to ‘The Winter’s Tale’?
Germaine Greer
• Page 48, Greer thinks there is no romanticism
in Shakespeare’s view of marriage:
Do you agree or disagree with reference to ‘The
Winter’s Tale’? Find examples and quotes to
support your answer.
Think about this Greer quote:
• “Love, love, love – all the wretched can’t of it,
masking egotism, lust, masochism, fantasy under
a mythology of sentimental postures, a welter of
self-induced miseries and joys, blinding and
masking the essential personalities in the frozen
gestures of courtship, in the kissing and the
dating and the desire, the compliments and the
quarrels which vivify its barrenness. ”
• What does Greer mean by this? Is she unfair and
bitter in her views on love do you think?!
More Greer quotes…
“Every woman knows that, regardless of all her
other achievements, she is a failure if she is not
beautiful.”
“Status ought not to be measured by a woman's
ability to attract and snare a man.”
What do you think of this?
Find some examples and QUOTES from ‘The
Winter’s Tale’ that support or reject this idea
Could a woman have written
‘The Winter’s Tale’?
• In her book ‘Shakespeare’s Wife’, Germaine
Greer argues that Shakespeare’s wife Anne
Hathaway was a much greater influence on his
writing than scholars and historians have
given her credit for.
• What do you think about the idea that ‘The
Winter’s Tale’ might have been written by a
woman? Create an argument either for or
against, illustrating your argument with
quotes from the play.