‘In tragedies, female characters are silenced and their desires ignored’. To what extent do you
agree? – Richard II and Gatsby
The Duchess of Gloucester is a prime example of the cruel mistreatment of women in tragedies.
Following the ceremony and aggression of Act 1 Scene 1, Shakespeare gives audiences an intimate
scene between the Duchess of Gloucester and brother in law John of Gaunt. Taking charge of the
conversation with lengthy monologues, Shakespeare juxtaposes the Duchess’s demands for Gaunt to
“venge my Gloucester’s death” with her clear helplessness and passivity. As a woman excluded from
the fast-paced political action of the play, the Duchess cannot expose her husband’s murder on her
own. The most she can do is emotively appeal to Gaunt. She tries to maintain composure through
couplets but her “despair” breaks into blank verse as she laments the injustice done to “Thomas, my
dear lord, my dear life”, the repetition of “my” emphasising her personal grief. Yet her pitiful pleas
are ignored by Gaunt who instead tells her to “complain” to “God” for assistance. Shakespeare’s
Duchess of Gloucester will die a quick and tragic death without ever seeing her desire for revenge
fulfilled. Foreboding her “desolate” death in this very scene, Shakespeare later announces that “the
Duchess died” through an unimportant servant in Act 2 Scene 2. Whereas Gaunt was given an
extended voice on his deathbed in Act 2 Scene 1, the Duchess is ignored and isolated- grouped in
and grieved as just one of the many “tide of woes” England faces in its turbulent climate. Unheard
and excluded from “Richard II”’s volatile male political sphere, the Duchess of Gloucester is thus
powerless to help her own cause and dies defined solely by her weakness.
The Duchess of York is similarly characterised in Act 5 Scene 2 as dismissed by husband York who
repeatedly berates her as a “foolish”, “mad” and “unruly woman” in the heat and fast pace of the
scene where in a flurry of exclamatives and action, Aumerle’s conspiracy to “kill the King at Oxford”
is discovered. Shakespeare creates a clear power struggle between the Duchess and her husband-
York ignores her maternal pleas for him to “hide the trespasses” of his own son. Her assertiveness is
however developed into Act 5 Scene 3 as the forceful Duchess pursues her cause “not long behind”
York, thus rejecting being silenced. Before the imposing figure of King Bolingbroke, the Duchess is
implied to be kneeling. Yet this position of subservience is juxtaposed by Shakespeare through her
self-confident manner. While she dominates the speech, Bolingbroke meekly replies with minimal
lines, hearing out the Duchess as she requests that Aumerle’s “foul sin” be pardoned. Moreover, she
is bold enough to defy Bolingbroke- refusing to “rise up” until her desires are affirmed, with
Bolingbroke acceding to her wishes and announcing that “I shall pardon him as God shall pardon
me”. In this sense, Shakespeare arguably presents the Duchess of York as a foil to the Duchess of
Gloucester. While the Duchess of York is a character cruelly silenced by her husband, she refuses the
status of a passive victim and ensures her desires are heard.
On the other hand, in Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ , arguably all female characters find themselves
marginalised and ignored- as demonstrated by Daisy. From the outset of the novel, Fitzgerald
presents Daisy as helpless to object to the abuses of Tom who prioritises his own promiscuous
desires over his wife. Daisy is shown to passively accept her husband’s affairs- in Chapter 1 she
“cries” that “it couldn’t be helped” and in Chapter 6 she gives Tom a pencil to write down the
address of a “common but pretty girl” at Gatsby’s party. The malice of Tom’s ignorance of his wife is
arguably exaggerated by the social expectations placed on Daisy. In Chapter 8 Fitzgerald reminisces
on how Daisy felt the “pressure of the outside world” to find a suitor. “There was a certain struggle
and a certain relief” and she ignored her heart’s desires for Gatsby and wedded Tom Buchanan as
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