The Features of Single-fathers in Father-daughter Relationships in Shakespear's King Lear, The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest
The scholarship by most of the feminist Shakespearean critics, especially during the post-modern era, has promoted the idea of Shakespeare’s male single parents as ‘tyrannous’, ‘cruel’, ‘violent’ and ‘murderous.’ Some of these critics are Shin (2010), Callaghan (2000, 2002 and 2016), and Leventen (1991). Not only do some of the critics find ‘all’ Shakespeare’s single fathers ‘tyrannous,’ ‘cruel,’ ‘violent’ and ‘murderous’, some even claim that by such characterization of single fathers, Shakespeare was deliberately promoting these unethical behaviours of his era. This research seeks to test these views against alternative readings of Shakespeare’s single fathers, the alternative view, that not ‘all…single fathers’ are ‘tyrannous,’ ‘cruel,’ ‘violent’ and ‘murderous’ in their relationships with their children, particularly their female children. Through a close reading of father-daughter relationships in Shakespeare’s King Lear, The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest,’ this paper will investigate the existence of good male single parents: those who demonstrate positive qualities in playing their paternal roles in the lives of their daughters, in particular.
Father-daughter Relationships, Shakespeare’s King Lear, Merchant of Venice, The Tempest
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