Deception in Shakespeare's Plays | Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1985)
Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1985)
SOURCE: "Male Bonding and the Myth of Women's Deception in Shakespeare's Plays," in Shakespeare's Personality, edited by Norman N. Holland, Sidney Homan and Bernard J. Paris, University of California Press, 1989, pp. 135-50.
[In the following essay, originally presented in 1985, Garner examines the pattern of male suspicion of female infidelity in Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale, arguing that the fear of being deceived manifests itself in the physical or verbal abuse of women, followed by the reassertion of male bonds.]
The problem of trust recurs in Shakespeare's works, from his earliest to his latest. Nowhere does he present it more prominently or explicitly than in his plays that deal with the actual or supposed infidelity of women: Much Ado About Nothing, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale. In only one of...
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