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Evolution of Female Characters: A Comparative Study of Shakespeare’s Rosalind and Lady Macbeth, and Collins’ Katniss Everdeen

Khadiza Akhter

Abstract

The paper looks at Rosalind of As You Like It and Lady Macbeth of Macbeth who are generally considered to be two of Shakespeare’s strongest female characters. In the Shakespearean world, Rosalind assumes strength and power through her male disguise. Without the disguise, she is stripped of her power and is almost entirely a subjugated, obedient woman even though she always keeps showing signs of being the most talented person among all the characters- both male and female- in the play. At the same time, Lady Macbeth’s strength relies on her husband’s ambitious mind and works through his love for her. But the moment Macbeth’s ambitions are fulfilled, distance grows between them and Lady Macbeth becomes a helpless and crazy woman. If this is the picture of women in the canonical literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this paper then turns its view towards the depiction of women in the literature of the twenty first century. It concentrates on the protagonist Katniss Everdeen of the trilogy The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins for detecting how far the depiction of female characters has evolved throughout centuries. Like Rosalind and Lady Macbeth, Katniss is a strong and influential character. But unlike Rosalind, she is never subjugated and although she is mentally shaken, her mind never gives in like Lady Macbeth. This paper attempts to show that in the literary world there is a continuous journey made by the women characters and at present they have come to the stage where the potential of Rosalind and Lady Macbeth are actualized into Katniss