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Judith Shakespeare is the narrator’s imagined sister of William Shakespeare, whom she uses to illustrate the impossibility of a genius woman writer emerging in Elizabethan England due to the oppressive trappings of society. The narrator endows Judith with the best possible situation for a woman of her social class, giving her innate talent and curiosity, and imagining a father who dotes upon her. Nevertheless, the social forces of Elizabethan England hamper Judith Shakespeare from the start. While William is allowed to go to London and is welcomed into the theater scene with open arms, Judith is expected to marry for the good of her family. Unlike William who can provide for his family through talent, Judith has marriage as the only socially acceptable option. When she runs away, her participation in the theater scene is predicated on providing sexual favors to male gatekeepers. Thus, the narrator can only imagine Judith ending up pregnant and then committing suicide. Judith’s pregnancy would mean that she truly had no space of her own to create because she would have been expected to devote her life to her children. With all opportunities for artistry denied to her, she takes her own life.
