Abstract:
Shakespearean plays, though varied on the basis of genre, thematic concerns and theatrical
elements, generally dramatize familial relationships. One of the richest familial relationships
dramatized among Shakespeare’s plays is the depiction of the father-daughter relationship. The
seeming tensions that emerge from the subversive means used by Shakespearean daughters
through which they appear to challenge the “conventional” patriarchal body invariably receive
the attention of the reader and the audience. In most plays, Shakespeare destines the fatherdaughter
bond to collapse where both parties ultimately fail in unification as “fathers and
daughters”. Most of the father figures in the plays appear to be authoritarians who tend to
regulate and confine the children, daughters in particular, to “conventional” ideological
formations. On the contrary, most of the Shakespearean daughters, except for a few, are
positioned as autonomous, rebellious figures who tend to challenge the norms that govern
patriarchy. In fact, the fathers’ insistence and doggedness in upholding the conformist values
of the Renaissance and Medieval society and the daughters’ challenging behaviours and their
trangressive desires to challenge the strict structures of hegemonic patriarchy bring forth the
central conflict in most father-daughter relationships in Shakespearean plays such as A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and Othello. Hence, this paper
focuses on several father-daughter relationships such as “Jessica- Shylock”, “Goneril-Lear and
Regan- Lear”, “Hermia- Egeus” and “Desdemona- Brabantio” that tend to challenge the
“conventional” parental model. Thus the aim of this paper is to reflect on how the revolutionary
and the challenging behaviours of the young daughters of the selected Shakespearean plays ruin
the “expectations” of the father figures; how their subversive means and non-conformity appear
to challenge and question the “masculinity” of both the nurturing father as well as the
domineering and hegemonic father who symbolizes the state.
