Translated Abstract
Shakespeare is the most celebrated and accomplished literary giant in British literature. The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing are two famous comedies of him. Female images in these two comedies, especially Katherina and Beatrice, have attracted great attention from researchers. There are abundant critical essays and books on Shakespeare’s comedies coming to world, however, previous studies barely focus on moral subject in comedies, and few critics analyze Shakespeare’s attitude towards females from the perspective of ethics of care.
In my thesis, I will explore two female characters’ moral development in his two comedies with ethics of care theory. Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, these two female characters in Shakespeare’s comedies go through the moral development from naivety to maturity, from a preconvetional, a conventional to a postconventional stage, according to the women developing stage theory proposed by Carol Gilligan. Katherina tries to achieve individual survival through marriage, while Beatrice attempts to achieve it through avoiding marriage. At the beginning, they are outlier of their world. But then they move toward social participation and take a transition from selfishness to responsibility. Finally, they strive to encompass the needs of both self and others, to be responsible to others but also to be responsible to themselves. Thus they accomplish the transition from a selfish “shrew” to a mature “lady”. The ethics of care theory of Carol Gilligan is empolyed in textual analysis. This theory is of great help in revealing the characters’ inner world and interpersonal relationship in the comedies.
The growth of females is an eternal issue in literary works. Shakepeare exhibited his thoughts about this issue in his comedies. Through the textual analysis of female character’s moral development in Shakespeare’s comedies, I hope my study can offer another pathway for this issue.
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