The Cross Dressing in the Room

As we have discussed heavily in class, cross dressing female characters within the play AND their cross dressing boy actors are a huge elephant in the room that must be addressed.

In both The Merchant of Venice and As You Like It, the two main female characters, Portia and Rosalind, disguise themselves as men in order to gain the power they need to make things right for themselves and those around them in their respective plays.

If these women were not in drag they wouldn't have been able to assert themselves in the same way they were both able to dressed as men. They are both clearly strong women (and human beings in general…) but unfortunately their position against the male characters would have fallen short in the end. SO, they both do what they have to in order to achieve their successes.

The big reveal in the end of both plays is the best part of this mixed up situation! Portia reveals to everyone when they are finally back in her home and she calls Bassanio out for giving her ring away and confesses that she was the lawyer who saved Antonio’s life when he was about to be skinned alive by Shylock. In As You Like It, Rosalind comes back from removing her disguise and the men were all like oh we knew it was her all along….. Okay, maybe but no. Let her have her success since this was the only way she was able to get it in a patriarchal society.

The Epilogue in As You Like It twists this crazy situation even further by having the boy actor who played Rosalind give the epilogue saying something along the lines of…. I know women aren't usually the ones to read the epilogue and this play really doesn't even need one but we’re just going to trip you up because I’m really a boy still just dressed up like a woman. Wait…. Who are you?