Examine Shakespeare's presentation of the female characters in the play and assess the significance of the play for a modern audience

The Winter's Tale is a play that focuses on the strength of women; this is not unusual for Shakespeare as his plays often contained strong willed and strong-minded women, for example; Lady Macbeth and Katherine from Taming of the Shrew. What is unusual however is the success of these plays in a male dominated society, a society that saw women as inferior and had adopted a negative attitude towards females of strength, including their own queen, Elizabeth, whose 44 year reign had ended not long before The Winters Tale was written. Shakespeare admired Queen Elizabeth for her strength in such an oppressive society. She was single-handedly responsible for turning "the weakling...