فهیمه ناصری

Women have been exposed to marginalization and oppression in17th century England when John Fletcher started writing plays about gender wars. The titles of Fletcher’s plays show his obsession with women: The Woman Hater, Rule a Wife, Have a Wife, A Wife for a Month, Cupid’s Revenge, The Mad Lover, Women Pleased, The Maid's Tragedy, The Scornful Lady, and The Woman’s Prize. The Woman's Prize or The Tamer Tamed, a comedy (1647), and Women Pleased, a tragicomedy (1647) are among Fletcher’s best solo plays in which we can see strong female characters who act quite revolutionary according to the 17th century norms of female behavior. This paper tries to convey that the leading female characters of these two plays are aware of their free will as women. They do not see womanhood as being subjugated and marginalized into stereotypes. In The Tamer Tamed, Maria wanted total equality and respect from her husband and ends up being his tamer. Thus, she can be considered a proto-feminist, like Belvidere in Women Pleased who did not agree to undergo a preplanned marriage and decided to choose for herself. Interpreting the roles that these women had in the plays in the light of feminist theories shows that Fletcher has been far ahead of his time in picturing these female characters and could be considered the transitional figure in early modern period. Traces of where his character development contributes to modern discussions of female authority are shown through a close reading of the plays and applying feminist theories to them.