ABSTRACT
Julie Crawford even sees John Fletcher's Tragedie of Bonduca as a parody, or at least a representation, of Elizabeth, showing Bonduca and her daughters as gender-subversive women. With reference to The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream, this chapter highlights how Fletcher's own treatment of Bonduca and her daughters feeds into the social idea of the disobedient woman as something wild and free that has to be broken-in through intimidation, violence and rape in order to be re-integrated into society through marriage. The didactic device of juxtaposing models of good and bad behaviour in Renaissance plots was current, just as it is today, but here Bonduca demonstrates to what extent Fletcher sacrifices character to theme. The narrative of Bonduca is both one of gender conflict and of native resistance to empire. A significant aspect of Bonduca's resistance to her Roman aggressors is her death oration before the Roman conquerors.
