Subversion of Conventional Gender Roles in Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem
Date
2017-12
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Art in English
Abstract
The Belle’s Stratagem is the eighteenth-century English comedic play by
Hannah Cowley. This play is based on the issues of gender studies and feminism. It
analyzes a female character, Letitia Hardy in relation with other characters. Letitia is
in search of her individual freedom and emancipation by changing the conventional
norms and values. She always finds out an unusual way in search of her gender
identity and freedom which is restricted by the patriarchal ideology. Actually, this
play is about the issue of eighteenth-century traditional marriage between two lovers
named Letitia and Doricourt. Letitia attempts to get arrange marriage with Doricourt
but Doricourt has little trouble accepting this type of arranged marriage for the sake of
family and money. It creates marital problem between them. It shows that women are
socially and culturally dominated by the men in the eighteenth-century English
society. It shows the main problems of this research. She has to compromise her
identity and manipulate a male- dominated system to gain Doricourt’s attention. It is a
great challenge to the patriarchal society which wants to keep her within restrictions.
There is socio-cultural discrimination or inequality prevalent in the society
regarding women. Cowley’s play depicts her unsatisfied characters, both male and
female, with their too narrowly defined gender roles. This thesis explores how some
characters, especially Letitia works to dismantle these kinds of pre-assigned gender
roles for the creation of equality between man and woman and then empowers voice
to the voiceless women to bring them to the mainstream. In this way, the study
discovers that women are not born inferior but society imposes inferior roles to them
and creates gender discrimination. So, women should subvert such type of gender
social construction.
Description
Keywords
patriarchal ideology, gender discrimination, English comedic play