All's Well That Ends Well: Helena's Rape of Bertram in Historical Context
Tony Tambasco has a good blog post about Shakespeare's play, All's Well That Ends Well, a play title which he notes could be paraphrased as "the ends justify the means," suggesting the play is humorously critical of such thinking.
You can read his blog post here.
Tambasco explains that the plot of this play involves a woman, Helena, who wishes to marry Bertram, and who tricks him into non-consensual sex, which many countries today would consider rape. He opens his blog post with a comment about how the #MeToo movement and other cultural developments have made Shakespeare's play, Measure for Measure, much more popular, but we should also be considering the rape of Bertram by Helena at this time in history. He notes that because of patriarchy in Shakespeare's England, women often lacked agency (a theme, I would add, that also comes up in Jane Austin's novels regarding the limited options for women and the way they often depended on advantageous marriages, as well as many other authors). Yet in the play, Alls Well, there is a gender reversal: instead of the monarchy supporting men, it takes Helena's side.
It seems to me that it was especially appropriate for Shakespeare to address such things, in part because he lived in a culture in which monarchs demanded things of their subjects that denied their subjects' rights and free will (including religious conformity, where dissenters or heretics under a number of Tudor monarchs were sometimes drawn and quartered, other times burned at the stake: Catholics, then Protestants, then Catholics again). One had to conform to the state religion and take an oath to the monarch, even if it went against one's confirmed baptismal vows.
Shakespeare's Christianity described the church as the bride of Christ, who is the bridegroom. Male kings claimed their authority came from God, always referred to as male. The church members were to submit to God and God's commandments as passed down in the Bible, and to submit to the male authority figures in the church, as well as to monarchs, usually men.
But Elizabeth was a woman calling the shots, like a Helena. Many complained and did not want to be ruled by a female monarch. And those who publicly criticized Elizabeth and who were overheard, as she approached the end of her life, hoping that death would take her soon, were sometimes reported and executed. It was actually made illegal to speak hopefully of her approaching death.
Also, Christianity of Shakespeare's time (and even certain popes and bishops) were against forced baptism, and believed that marriage required the free consent of those being married. So the forced conversion of Shylock at the end of The Merchant of Venice, and also the forced marriage of Bertram to Helena, and the bed trick by which, according to some modern definitions, Bertram is raped by Helena, both rub against the grain of certain important expectations about baptism and marriage.
How does one address such things in such a political context, under the watchful gaze of censors?
Maybe the rape of an unwilling husband is one of many places to start as a metaphor for the ways the heads of state (both female and male) lorded it over the body politic— rather than following Jesus' example as a servant who washed the disciples' feet. The rights of many men and women were not being respected by monarchs that imposed state religion and required oaths of allegiance, so perhaps non-consensual sex imposed on a man was an appropriate metaphor that addressed the political context powerfully, but in a way that would escape the scrutiny of the censors.
You can read his blog post here.
Tambasco explains that the plot of this play involves a woman, Helena, who wishes to marry Bertram, and who tricks him into non-consensual sex, which many countries today would consider rape. He opens his blog post with a comment about how the #MeToo movement and other cultural developments have made Shakespeare's play, Measure for Measure, much more popular, but we should also be considering the rape of Bertram by Helena at this time in history. He notes that because of patriarchy in Shakespeare's England, women often lacked agency (a theme, I would add, that also comes up in Jane Austin's novels regarding the limited options for women and the way they often depended on advantageous marriages, as well as many other authors). Yet in the play, Alls Well, there is a gender reversal: instead of the monarchy supporting men, it takes Helena's side.
It seems to me that it was especially appropriate for Shakespeare to address such things, in part because he lived in a culture in which monarchs demanded things of their subjects that denied their subjects' rights and free will (including religious conformity, where dissenters or heretics under a number of Tudor monarchs were sometimes drawn and quartered, other times burned at the stake: Catholics, then Protestants, then Catholics again). One had to conform to the state religion and take an oath to the monarch, even if it went against one's confirmed baptismal vows.
Shakespeare's Christianity described the church as the bride of Christ, who is the bridegroom. Male kings claimed their authority came from God, always referred to as male. The church members were to submit to God and God's commandments as passed down in the Bible, and to submit to the male authority figures in the church, as well as to monarchs, usually men.
But Elizabeth was a woman calling the shots, like a Helena. Many complained and did not want to be ruled by a female monarch. And those who publicly criticized Elizabeth and who were overheard, as she approached the end of her life, hoping that death would take her soon, were sometimes reported and executed. It was actually made illegal to speak hopefully of her approaching death.
Also, Christianity of Shakespeare's time (and even certain popes and bishops) were against forced baptism, and believed that marriage required the free consent of those being married. So the forced conversion of Shylock at the end of The Merchant of Venice, and also the forced marriage of Bertram to Helena, and the bed trick by which, according to some modern definitions, Bertram is raped by Helena, both rub against the grain of certain important expectations about baptism and marriage.
How does one address such things in such a political context, under the watchful gaze of censors?
Maybe the rape of an unwilling husband is one of many places to start as a metaphor for the ways the heads of state (both female and male) lorded it over the body politic— rather than following Jesus' example as a servant who washed the disciples' feet. The rights of many men and women were not being respected by monarchs that imposed state religion and required oaths of allegiance, so perhaps non-consensual sex imposed on a man was an appropriate metaphor that addressed the political context powerfully, but in a way that would escape the scrutiny of the censors.
Comments
Post a Comment