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| The eight-member cast of California Shakespeare Theater’s Pericles puts on a jousting pageant on stage at the Bruns Memorial Amphitheater in Orinda. Photo by Kevin Berne. Courtesy: http://www.theaterdogs.net/ |
Pericles, Prince of
Tyre,
a romantic play by William Shakespeare revolves around various women characters
from diverse family backgrounds. These women have significant roles in movement
of the plot, for without them the play would be different. But, their role in
decision making moments that actually determine the plot movement is different
from character to character. While some characters are not allowed to speak
during crucial decision making moments, some other even enjoy it to the extent
that they are misused. In some cases, the decision making right awarded to
women in the play is not much strong as women generally had in the sixteenth
century Shakespearean English society. But, some women are able to make their voices
heard in decision making processes. In overall, the decision making right that
women characters in the play can enjoy is not uniform, but different from case
to case and person to person.
Four major women characters in the
play – unnamed daughter of King Antiochus, Dionyza, Thaisa and Marina are
placed in different situations where they have to make certain decisions during
the course of the play. Studying those scenes is interesting in order to
understand how women in that time in that society were allowed to make
decisions on their own or barred from that right. Also interesting is to see
how well equipped they are for making a right decision that may help them get
rid of the problems they are facing.
The first woman character that
appears on the stage is the unnamed daughter of King Antiochus. The Prince of
Tyre, Pericles has come to ask for her hand for marriage, thus there is a
decision to make for the lady. In this decision making process, the father King
Antiochus controls the complete authority and doesn't allow the daughter to say
anything. The fact that she is not named is also a subtle hint that she doesn't
have any say in what should be done. The Prince and the King have a very long
conversation but what the daughter speaks is mere two lines. These two lines
too do not suggest a decisive voice, but are submissive in themselves, "Of
all 'say'd yet, mayst thou prove prosperous! …I wish thee happiness!" (1.1).
The daughter is forced to have
incestuous sexual relationship with her own father. Had she had her say in issues
that affect her, she would not have been in such 'shameful' act. It can be well
anticipated that no woman generally likes to be involved in any incest for such
relations hamper her social and moral image more than the male involved. It is
easy, hence, to conclude that she is often forced for such relations by the
male partner against her desires. Thus, the fact that the father has made her
in the incest is also evidence that she does not have any slight right of
decision making on her own.
Further, King Antiochus has framed a
riddle about the incest. Whoever can solve that wins the daughter but the
riddle is constituted with "the expressed intent of hoarding the daughter
indefinitely in the father’s house as his own prize" (Hepp 3). In this
way, the daughter is merely a plaything for him which can be considered a prize
in riddle games. She is no more a living human being who can and should make
decisions on her own, but a mere token for the father's enjoyment. She is a
commodity, a thing that the father can sell for his interest. Hepp severely
comments, "Antiochus is both the broker and the buyer for his
daughter" (3). In this regard, the princess represents the lowest degree
of decision making right a woman could have in the play.
The second important woman seen in
the play is Dionyza, wife of Cleon, governor of Tarsus. She has some control
over decisions that affect her individual and family life. Being a good company
for the husband, she is influential in decisions that Cleon makes in state
affairs. Reading Scene IV of Act I, it
can be said that she is at least free to express her views in any affairs with
her husband. Also she is free to express her views in moments of decision
makings.
As the play progresses, she enjoys
more and more freedom and decision making rights. When Pericles's daughter
Marina is growing up with her own daughter, Dionyza decides to kill her just
for she envied Marina's personality as a peer for her daughter Philoten. She
decides alone - without deliberation with and consent from her husband or any
advisor – to kill Marina. This fact proves that she has got utmost independence
in decision making by now. The answer
that Leonine, who is deployed to kill Marina, gives to Marina's question
"Why will you kill me?" that "To satisfy my lady" also
shows how much dominating the governess Dionyza is in her decisions (4.1).
Thus, she not only enjoys independent decision making rights, but even misuses
it to the extent to kill someone without any valid reason.
Pericles' wife Thaisa, a daughter of
Simonides, King of Pentapolis also enjoys the decision making rights quite
liberally. The play offers the audiences witness a scene where the princess
chooses a bridegroom for her independently and gets success in marrying him
after convincing her father. Marrying off with Pericles seems quite an
independent decision; for she has
numerous knights as potential grooms, which she rejects all to go for her own
choice – Pericles. Since choosing whether to marry and (if, yes) with whom are
basic but important decisions that a woman makes in her age of youth and Thaisa
uses both of them quite freely, she can be considered an ideal of what a woman
with full decision making rights is.
Of course, the father tries to control
the decision making process in the beginning. King Simonides orders the
daughter in an apparent threatening tone (albeit he may not have any intention
to threat), "Do as I bid you, or you'll move me else" (2.3). But, the
princess makes the father surrender before her persistent will, welcome
Pericles, Prince of Tyre as the would-be son-in-law, "Come, sir… you
knights of Tyre are excellent…" and bid farewell to all other pursuers,
"Princes, it is too late to talk of love" (2.3). Hepp even writes
that she, with her father, views the groom Pericles as a "desired
commodity" (6). In this way, Thaisa, though being a woman, grabs not only
decision making rights on her own, but also shows some potential to influence
decisions of her father.
In later part of the drama, she chooses
to stay at the temple of Diana, which is also her own choice. Though the temple
in particular is actually suggested by Cerimon, the Lord of Ephesus, it is Thaisa
herself who at first expresses her commitment to stay away from worldly life,
"A vestal livery will I take me to / And never more have joy" (3.4). Only
after Thaisa opines for choosing a life at the temple, the Lord approaches to
help her find an appropriate location. Thaisa, thus, is perhaps the most fortunate
woman who gets right to decision and uses it well in her interest throughout
her life.
Another woman to look for in the play
regarding availability of decision making rights is Marina, the daughter to
Pericles and Thaisa. Deserted by her parents in the early childhood out of
compulsion in different circumstances, Marina cannot get any chance to choose
while she is brought up by Cleon and Dionyza in Tarsus. Her bringing up is poor,
although in a Governor's house, for her care is only a compulsion, not interest,
for Cleon and Dionyza. "Taking charge of Marina is a continued repayment
for the corn, and Cleon understands that it is his duty… This exchange between
two men places Marina into the exchange market, where she is transferred from
one man to another through an exchange of commercial goods" (Hepp 5). Hepp
has well justified that Cleon bringing up Marina is a repayment of the help
earlier offered by Pericles during the famine in Tarsus. Besides that, Cleon
and Dionyza do not have any interest to adopt her at their palace.
Marina, thus, is a victim by nature who
does have very few, if any, opportunities to choose between one and another.
Lack of freedom in her life is perhaps behind the frustration that she once
expresses in these lines during the play, "Born in a tempest, when my
mother died / This world to me is like a lasting storm / Whirring me from my
friends" (4.1). Consequently, she is forced to serve in brothel where she
is treated as a commodity, not a human being. Thus, there is no question if she
has a right to decide.
Out of bravery and courage, she succeeds
to come out of captivity of brothel with the help of Lysimachus, Governor of
Mytelene, and Boult. The story of bravery and courage is quite different from whether
she is offered an independent right to decision. It is better to analyse
Marina's personality and role in the play in terms of a feminine bravery than
in terms of her enjoyment of freedom and rights. But, it is justifiable to
infer that she is a woman who does her best to get her rights on hold and use
them correctly.
Daughter of King Antiochus, Dionyza,
Thaisa and Marina have very significant roles to move the play Pericles. Although they represent womanhood
and womanliness of the same time in history, the level of rights they enjoy to
decision making is different between and among each other. This difference
shows that during a same historical phase too, there can be different levels
and versions of womanhood and womanliness. It is thus wrong to assume that all
women of a particular age or society are victims of patriarchy in the same
degree. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, in
this way is an apparent manifestation of different versions of womanhood and
woman rights existed in that time in particular, which ever exists in each
phase of history everywhere.
Works Cited
Hepp, Rebecca. "Women in Caskets: Commodities in Shakespeare’s Pericles." Concept 36 (2013): 1-10. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://concept.journals.villanova.edu/article/view/1523>
Shakespeare,
William. Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
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