Strong Heroines of Shakespeare in Estranged Father-Daughter Relationships

Abstract

Shakespeare lived in an era when all actors were male and serious drama focused mainly on the adventures of men. Despite this, he wrote a lot of intricate and interesting feminine roles for his young male performers to play. Relationships between fathers and children are prominent, and a large number of them link fathers and daughters. Interestingly, mothers are frequently absent from the drama, highlighting the daughter-father relationship. Shakespeare’s dramatic daughters create a formidable line-up of young ladies, most of whom are in a transitional period between the security of their childhood home and adult life beyond it. The transition is rarely easy: tensions mount as daughters seek love, adventure, and independence in both comedies and tragedies. Several of Shakespeare’s plays have girls negotiating their fathers’ demands, frequently attempting to combine responsibility with a yearning for independence. The present study focuses on Shakespeare’s strongest heroines like Cordelia in King Lear and Desdemona in Othello, both of whom had an estranged relationship with their fathers due to a clash of their personalities. These motherless daughters suffered both at the hands of destiny and society in the absence of their fathers’ support.