Unravelling self-differentiation and chronic anxiety in father-daughter relationship in selected Shakespearean plays

Twenty-one of Shakespeare’s works pivot around familial discord, primarily delving into the strained dynamics between fathers and daughters. While examining the father-daughter relationship in theatrical works has been the prominent focus of scholarly inquiries, analysis of familial relationships using Bowen Theory in Shakespearean plays remains widely unexplored. Hence, the present study adopts an innovative interdisciplinary research approach and scrutinizes the dynamics of the father-daughter connection in four of Shakespeare’s plays, which are King Lear, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the degree of self-differentiation exhibited by fathers and daughters in the selected plays. Furthermore, the study explored the fusion and differentiation within their interactions with both their original and nuclear families and the manifestation of chronic anxiety among fathers and its impact on their daughters. Lastly, the study investigated the presence of chronic anxiety resulting from social circumstances and its effects on the father- daughter relationship, as depicted in the selected texts. The findings of the study indicated that the fathers and daughters in the selected plays demonstrated a lower degree of self-differentiation, which is proportioned with the quality of their father-daughter relationships. The analysis of these four plays revealed a discernible pattern wherein the daughters are subjected to their fathers’ emotional projections. Additionally, the selected plays illuminated the father-daughter relationships as embodiments of various social-emotional processes: patriarchal constructions, mental diseases, emotional pain, societal degradation, religious norms, and promiscuous sexuality. This analysis posits that the father-daughter relationships depicted in the plays King Lear, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be characterized as dysfunctional. This dysfunction arises from several factors, including the lower levels of the self-differentiation of the fathers and daughters, the projection of the father’s anxieties onto their daughters, and the chronic anxiety resulting from societal regression. Using Bowen Theory to examine the father-daughter relationship in these plays, this study provided a novel way to examine dysfunctional family relationships depicted in William Shakespeare’s works.

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