SOURCE: Haslem, Lori Schroeder. “‘O Me, the Word Choose!’: Female Voice and Catechetical Ritual in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Merchant of Venice.” Shakespeare Studies 22 (1994): 122-40.

In the following excerpt, Haslem analyzes the significance of Shakespeare's use of female friendships and communication in a largely patriarchal setting, such as that presented in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Whenever women meet privately and talk, says Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex, they construct a “counter-universe” which privileges female values not normally accorded a place within a patriarchal-valued universe.¹ To explain the purpose of such private conferences, de Beauvoir borrows a metaphor from the theater. “Confronting man,” she says, “woman is always play-acting,” but “with other women, a woman is behind the scenes …, polishing her equipment …, getting her costume together, preparing her make-up … before making her entrance on the stage.”² And yet, when de Beauvoir's metaphor of...