Using
Sherry B. Ortner’s tenets of ecofeminism and Edgar C. Knowlton’s analyses of
Shakespeare’s various understandings of “nature,” the Kakkonen and Penjak argue the
understanding of nature is socially constructed, creating a hierarchical order
in both political and cultural spheres within the patriarchal systems that
Shakespeare’s plays, and thus his characters, exist within. Connecting the
patriarchal roles of women within the context of family (ie. being a daughter, a
wife, and a mother) to the construction of nature being closer to women than
men, the authors apply Ortner’s understanding of the procreative functions of the
female body: “1) a woman's body creates new life; while a man's doesn't, thus
enabling him to get involved in cultural issues; 2) because of their
reproductive ability, women are placed on a lower social scale than men; 3)
being defined by the body functions and traditionally imposed social roles,
women are seen as being closer to nature” (Kakkonen & Penjak 28). This
process of othering, justifying the placement of women in lower levels of social
and cultural contexts, domination of daughters, and in turn wives and mothers,
occur throughout the plays, but each of the daughters broke the societal
expectations of their fathers. In defining themselves by breaking away from
their fathers’ repressive wills, the women are destroyed, as if the tragedy is
their free will, indicating a patriarchal system that must be broken by the men
who constructed it (Kakkonen & Penjak 31).
--Hannah Nagy
