Shakespeare’s Sister in Virginia Woolf’s Discourse

Misogyny and the Plight of Women in the Arts: Woolf's "Shakespeare's Sister"

In “Shakespeare’s Sister,” author Virginia Woolf examines the misogynistic world in which women, particularly those in the arts, were forced to live and endure during the years prior and leading up to the early twentieth century. She uses the questions, “... why no woman wrote a word of that extraordinary literature when every other man, it seemed, was capable of song or sonnet. What were the conditions in which women lived …”, to highlight the problem she addresses throughout this piece.

To demonstrate her conclusion that “it would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare”, she creates an imaginary character - who is the sister of William Shakespeare - named Judith Shakespeare and essentially illustrates her life story and the obstacles she faced being a woman.

The Constrained Life of Judith Shakespeare: A Tragic Tale

The story goes as follows: Judith, who is just as talented as her brother, forcibly forgoes going to school and is instead stuck at home doing household chores. She had none of the same opportunities to learn grammar, read literature, and many others as she would have had attending school. Therefore, her talents were hindered due to the restraints put on the female sex during that period. One day, after she had grown to be about seventeen, she packed her belongings and ventured off toward London. Her passion for theatre led her to a stage in London, but the men who stood there instead laughed in her face and saw her attempt to pursue a career there as a joke. It is then that Woolf writes the unfortunate fate of Judith, who becomes pregnant with the child of the actor-manager of that theatre, which ultimately causes her to later commit suicide.

A Model of Systemic Suppression and Tragic Outcomes

This story plays a significant role in addressing the problems Woolf illustrated at the beginning of this piece. Judith serves as a model for the negative consequences women face when they are restricted to only serving in the home and as child bearers. They were treated as having no value, and rather than being prized as important life forms that could bring much to the table, they were instead treated as a tool to men and society. Although Woolf expands on these ideas, she ultimately concludes that while the poor treatment and suppression of women’s interests was unpleasant, she claimed that “To have lived a free life in London in the sixteenth century would have meant for a woman who was poet and playwright a nervous stress and dilemma which might have killed her. Had she survived, whatever she had written would have been twisted and deformed…” Basically, even if a woman was successful in pursuing her passions, it would have caused her much mental and physical misery, and her work would have lacked quality. She expands on the tragedy of Judith to reflect on the many misfortunes and sufferings of intelligent and talented women of that period.

Unanswered Questions: Reflections and Modern Parallels

If Judith had successfully published works of literature, would they have been as successful as William’s or instead faced ridicule and negative judgment? If successful, in what ways would Judith have been treated compared to the praise and admiration William received? What was the ultimate cause of Judith’s death: her becoming pregnant or her being denied the opportunity to pursue her passions? How does Woolf’s essay relate to modern-day oppression of women?

References:

1. Woolf, Virginia. "Shakespeare's Sister." In "The Norton Anthology of English Literature," edited by Stephen Greenblatt et al., 275-701. W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.

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