William Shakespeare has many interesting female characters in all of his different types of works. Some of its women are leading ladies while others are just supporting characters who help move the story forward. No matter how deep the characters' roles, each woman exhibits some type of unthinkable personality trait that would be unique to women in Shakespeare's time. Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear all have female characters who represent women who would not be seen in the time when William Shakespeare was writing. It took creativity and talent for Shakespeare to bring his characters before the censor who would check the plays. His female characters are strong, but not overtly so. He gives them characteristics of his time, but also gives them new traits that you wouldn't normally see in women of his time. In William Shakespeare's time, it was very immoral to woo a woman on stage. This can become a problem for dramatic writing, but this problem was solved with a simple solution: having men play women. When men play women on stage, the reader of a future generation may see homosexual tones. At that time, this would be completely normal. When the plays were performed, there were rarely any women in the audience. The people on the ground, those who couldn't pay for high seats, were mostly men. Sometimes the women in the audience were whores and prostitutes. Women were rarely workers, they were expected to be housewives and mothers. Women were hypocritical about the rules governing who they could marry. In reality, men could marry whoever they wanted. Men could marry above their social class and, more controversially, below their social class. The same cannot be said of two... middle of paper ... One whom the other poisoned for me and then committed suicide” (5.3.214-216). Her comments just show what kind of women these girls were, simply by the personality of the man they fell in love with. Being a woman in Shakespeare's time seems to be nothing to be proud of. Women were treated poorly, almost like second-class citizens. William Shakespeare gave women a little voice and shed new light on them through his plays. He showed that women could be strong, intelligent and even violent and cruel. This would be a huge contrast to the quiet, subservient women he was used to seeing. Shakespeare compared the type of women he knew to the type of women he thought the world would never see. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Macbeth. Boston: DC Heath and Company, 1915. Google Books. Internet. September 3. 2015.