A Feminist Reading of The Merchant of Venice

An analysis of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice from the perspective of the feminist female image theory manifests the fact that the Shakespearean heroines do not fall simply into two stereotypes, namely, the good or the bad; rather, endowed with the modern antipatriarchal spirit, they are in the center of the stage whereas the men are in a subordinate and marginal position. By doing so, Shakespeare has successfully undermined the patriarchal ideology and facilitated the deconstruction of the traditional definition of women by a mencentered society, thereby offering a clearcut silhouette of his feminist ideas.