Family Values In Shakespeare’s Romances

Family being the smallest institution in society,its stability plays a significant role in maintaining social order.However,in his four romances,Shakespeare portrays all kinds of family conflicts.Based on family studies,this thesis intends to figure out some possible factors that cause these family conflicts and reveal Shakespeare’s reflections on family values.The introduction part mainly sorts out some family studies in relation to Shakespeare’s romances and outlines the research value of this thesis.The first chapter deals with the marital relationship in the four late plays from the perspectives of marriage and sexuality.In the early modern period,the husbands’ anxiety toward the wives’ chastity is commonplace,and many literary works has depicted such abnormal anxiety.For instance,in The Winter’s Tale and Cymbeline,both Leontes and Posthumus accuse their wives of committing adultery,which inevitably leads to marriage breakdown.Such marital crisis exemplified in Shakespeare’s romances demonstrates that the husband-wife relationship should be established on mutual trust and respect instead of suspicion.The second chapter is concentrated on the conflicts in the parent-child relationship,which are mainly caused by the fathers’ assertion of paternal authority through controlling the children’s marriages.In Shakespeare’s romances,the fathers often occupy a dominant position in the family and tend to intervene in their children’s love affairs and marriages.They usually determine their children’s marriages by considering lineage,social rank,family interests and political intentions while totally ignore the children’s personal affection.However,young adults are unwilling to be controlled by their fathers and in turn act positively against their father’s will.In this way,Shakespeare reshapes the traditional parent-child relationship which ensures the father absolute authority and oppresses the child’s voice.To a large degree,Shakespeare opposes arranged marriages and supports young adults to strive for marital autonomy.Such change of ethical attitude clearly shows the progress of family values during the Renaissance period.The last chapter probes into family values which are reflected in the sibling relationship in Shakespeare’s romances.The siblings in the romances can be divided into two types: the loving siblings and the hostile siblings.In any society,the sibling relationship is expected to be affectionate and harmonious.In the romances,Shakespeare also praises the harmonious relationship between brothers and sisters which is connected by the ties of kinship.However,due to the prevalence of primogeniture in early modern England,some siblings often turn into enemies and contend for inheritance,status and power.There is no doubt that Shakespeare condemns such sibling rivalry which violates the appropriate family values.In essence,he attaches great importance to family love.In the age of Shakespeare,the society is at the turning point of social transformation.There is a collision between the medieval social mores and the Renaissance values.Therefore,family conflicts depicted in Shakespeare’s romances serve as a microcosm of the collision between old and new family values.Generally speaking,Shakespeare extols family values such as faith,affection,equality,freedom,forgiveness and selflessness,so as to shake the fetters of patriarchy and primogeniture.