“Gender hardly determines the nature of a character in Shakespeare's plays. It is precisely for this reason that his plays are read, seen and appreciated equally by both sexes, even after five hundred years of composition” (Singh). Gender is not something that defines what a character will be like in Shakespeare's plays. This quote shows that in Shakespeare's writings, women and men were on equal footing when it came to their characteristics. At that time, women were considered inferior to men. Over the course of the semester, we read some beautiful plays, from comedies to tragedies; Shakespeare's later plays featured a very wide range of female characters, from the weak, obedient woman to the strong, self-reliant woman. An example of this would be that Ophelia in Hamlet exhibits weak and obedient characteristics, while Viola in Twelfth Night is a strong female role who breaks gender roles by disguising herself as a man and proving that women are equivalent to men. Even Shakespeare's weaker female characters seem to break some of the stereotypical role of the time. For example, Ophelia listens to her father, but responds to Hamlet who in the Renaissance breaks the stereotypical role. Shakespeare was an early feminist because of his non-traditional female characters; despite the weakness of his female characters, Shakespeare always gives his female characters a trait that follows a non-traditional role. In this article I will focus on King Lear, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet. I will use Hamlet to show that even the weakest female characters have characteristics that differ from gender. A feminist is someone who tries to defend the equality of women. I believe... middle of paper ......edAtkin, Graham. Twelfth Night: Character Studies. London: Continuum, 2008. Academic eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Internet. April 13, 2014.Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare without women. Routledge, 2002. Jajja, Muhammad Ayub. “Women in Shakespearean Comedies: A Feminist Perspective.” Journal of Educational Research (1027-9776) 16.1 (2013): 112-119. Educational research completed. Internet. April 13, 2014.Orgel, Stephen and Sean Keilen. Shakespeare and gender. New York: Garland Pub., 1999. Online text. Sharma, Pankaj. “Representation of women as human: a reading of the excesses of feminist readings of Shakespeare’s King Lear.” Language in India 13.12 (2013): 433-446. Communication and mass media completed. Internet. April 13, 2014. Singh, Rahul. "Shakespeare's plays: men celebrated, women scorned?." Language in India 14.2 (2014): 141-156. Communication and mass media completed. Internet. April 13. 2014