Gender and Expectations: Who Makes the Rules?

Who decides how a character should behave? Who benefits when they obey? And what happens when they refuse?

Those questions sit at the heart of my Theme Thursday post on gender and expectations. They offer a way into several GCSE Literature texts, especially when you want to move beyond saying that a character challenges traditional roles.

I call this approach the Spellbound Expectations Trap. It follows five stages: the social ideal, the pressure to conform, the restriction that creates, the character’s resistance and the consequences. You can use it to organise your thinking without forcing every character into the same story.

Identify the expectation

Start by making the rule specific. “Women had fewer opportunities” may be relevant, but it is too broad to explain an individual scene.

Ask what someone is expected to do in the passage you are studying. Is a daughter expected to accept her father’s choice of husband? Is a wife expected to direct all her attention towards her husband? Is a man expected to prove his courage through violence?

Then ask who presents that expectation as normal. A character’s opinion does not automatically represent the writer’s view.

Macbeth: when courage becomes a test of masculinity

In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth links her husband’s willingness to kill Duncan with his identity as a man. This turns a moral decision into a test of whether he meets her definition of masculinity.

Follow the trap: the ideal is a man who demonstrates courage; the pressure comes from Lady Macbeth’s challenge; the restriction is the suggestion that refusing violence makes Macbeth inadequate. His decision to commit murder shows how destructive that pressure can become.

Lady Macbeth’s own rejection of conventional femininity adds another tension. Her wish to put aside qualities she associates with womanhood can be read as a response to the limits she believes those expectations impose on her.

Avoid reducing either character to a simple reversal of male and female roles. Explore how Shakespeare makes the connection between gender, power and violence troubling.

Romeo and Juliet: obedience and choice

Juliet’s conflict with her father brings the expectation of an obedient daughter into sharp focus. Her wishes collide with a marriage arrangement in which her father expects authority over her future.

Here, it helps to distinguish having a voice from being allowed to use it. Juliet can express what she wants, but the response to her resistance reveals how limited her freedom is within her family.

When you analyse a confrontation, look closely at how the characters speak to one another. Commands, threats and interruptions may tell you more about the balance of power than a general statement about society.

An Inspector Calls: gender alongside class

Sheila and Eva Smith give you different ways to explore expectations of women. Sheila’s growing willingness to question others challenges the idea that she should remain agreeable and deferential. Eva’s vulnerability also asks you to consider how gender and economic position work together.

The distinction matters. Two women can face restrictions without having the same choices or protection. Rather than writing about a single female experience, ask what each character can risk, who listens to her and whose account reaches the audience.

You might then connect Sheila’s response to the Inspector with Priestley’s wider interest in responsibility and the possibility of change.

My Last Duchess: who controls the story?

In Browning’s poem, the Duke describes his former wife to a listener. The reader encounters her through his account and her portrait; she cannot answer his complaints.

That imbalance is useful to analyse. Consider how his possessive attitude shapes the story he tells, and what his dissatisfaction reveals about the behaviour he expected from her.

The poem’s dramatic monologue allows the Duke to reveal more about himself than he may intend. Your interpretation can examine the distance between how he wants to appear and what his speech suggests about control.

Build a paragraph around the consequences

The final stage of the trap is often where the most interesting argument begins. Resistance may bring independence, punishment, conflict or a mixture of outcomes. It does not always produce freedom.

Choose a scene from your set text and finish these prompts:

1. The character is expected to…
2. This expectation is enforced by…
3. It limits the character’s ability to…
4. The character responds by…
5. The consequences suggest that the writer is questioning…

Use a short quotation to support the connection you find most convincing. These texts offer useful thematic connections, but only compare them in an essay when your task asks you to do so.

You can find the framework in my Gender & Expectations Instagram post. For your next revision session, try applying it to one moment rather than an entire text.