Queen of Hearts: Woman Power and the Woman Question in A Man for All Seasons Annmicha Blugh College

In Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons (1960), paradoxically, queenly power and the woman question emerge as salient themes. Since ancient times, one understands that the woman is popularly conceived of as the weaker vessel and an instrument of reproduction, primarily to birth a male heir to secure primogeniture and hence, continuity of the male lineage. Close analysis of this work clarifies on the role and status of women of the three major socio-economic classes: elite, bourgeois and poorest. Despite these diversities, one appreciates that Bolt merely mirrors the concepts of femininity in a radicalising period such as the English Reformation, reflecting the woman’s primal image as a paragon of fertility, polarisation, and passivity. Here, alongside the profound rivalries and feminine fragility, phenomenal fortitude and courage shine in resplendence.

In A Man for All Seasons, a bizarre game of thrones plays out in which the survival and stability of the monarchical dynasty depends on the fulfillment of the queen’s responsibility to give birth to a son. The infertility of Queen Catherine of Aragon, Spain gives King Henry VIII 'lawful' licence to divorce her, pitting her against archrival, Queen Anne Boleyn, whom King Henry...