Lessons from Shakespeares Tiger Mothers: Parental Authority in Coriolanus and Merchant of Venice

Annalise Acorn and Katherine C

Abstract

Shakespeare, as always, is a goldmine. In many of his portrayals of the parent-child relationship Shakespeare explores the extent of the parent’s legitimate authority over the child as well as the legitimacy of parents’ attempts to control and mould their children in the service of family ambition.What Shakespeare’s depiction of Coriolanus shows is that going from submission to tyrannical authority as a child to effective self-rule in adulthood may be impossible. Children habituated to valuing their parent’s external preferences over their own internal ones may not have the capacity to know let alone honour their own truth.