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UBC Theses and Dissertations

Pride in progress : an examination of queer shame in Shakespeare's A midsummer night's dream and Twelfth night Jacobson, Eva Vanderloop

Abstract

This thesis examines how Shakespeare incorporated early modern social policing and public shaming practices into his plays as a means of demonstrating and critiquing the unique role shame played in the deterrence of socially transgressive, and especially queer, behavior in Elizabethan England. It examines how the apparent disintegration of formerly immutable boundaries in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries ignited fears of widespread disorder, leading to an increase in public shaming rituals like charivaris, rough ridings, cartings, and skimingtons. These punishments were carried out by one’s neighbors as a means of instilling order and shaming people who failed to conform to community norms. While, the Introduction will explore the historical context in which Shakespeare produced his plays (briefly outlined above), the ensuing chapters will focus on how shame features in two of Shakespeare’s comedies: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night. Chapter One examines the methods used by A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s authoritarian male characters—Theseus and Oberon—to control the queer women who resist their rule. It argues that the men’s disastrous attempts to assert their dominance not only fail to effectively shame Hippolyta and Titania but result in potentially catastrophic consequences for the realms the duke and fairy king are supposed to protect. Chapter Two explores the centrality of shame in Twelfth Night and its role in punishing the disorderly behavior of queer characters who allow their transgressive desires to interfere with their obligatory roles in the gender and class hierarchies. It also examines how the Malvolio subplot exposes the myriad flaws in Elizabethan social policing and public shaming practices, as well as the hypocrisy of those who employ such methods to punish their peers. As a whole, this thesis attempts to throw into question the stability and intrinsic value of a social order which relies on the habitual and widespread application of shame for its survival.

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