Throughout the period of the Shakespearean stage, many plays have led audiences and critics to question sexual identity and gender roles, not only in his pieces, but also in many other pieces. At this time in modern England, cross-dressing was considered a dramaturgical motif, a theatrical practice and a social phenomenon. “In Shakespeare's time, a cross-dressing heroine, like any female character, also implied a gender shift in the world of the theater, as women's roles were normally assigned to young male apprentices called playboys” (Shapiro, 1). In each of Shakespeare's five plays involving a cross-dressing heroine, he tried something different. He skillfully varied each motif in which each piece proved to have different reactions and results. All the heroines, Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Viola in Twelfth Night, all from aristocratic and wealthy families, were educated and courageous enough to disguise themselves in order to enter the male world. . “The adoption of disguise also implied the inevitability of exposure, and with it the assurance that even the most assertive heroine, if she were to survive, would eventually regain her feminine identity and her place within a patriarchal society. " (Shapiro, 65) These cross-dressing heroines are similar in many ways, their voices and costumes being the most important. But they are all active and determined rather than passive and submissive, they show their intelligence and abilities, and although they show their masculinity, they retain their feminine characteristics and qualities. The history of female cross-dressing dates back to before the story of Arabella in 1611. Stuart, who was linked...... middle of paper ...... Companion to Shakespearean Comedy. 179-197. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2002. MLA International Bibliography. Internet. March 14, 2014.Howard, Jean E. “Cross-dressing, Theater, and Gender Struggle in Early Modern England.” Shakespeare Quarterly 39.4 (1988): 418-440. MLA International Bibliography. Internet. March 14, 2014. Myers, Jeffrey Rayner. "'In nothing am I changed but in my clothes': Shakespearean cross-dressing and the politics of sexual frustration." Annals Of Scholarship: An International Quarterly in the Humanities and Social Sciences 11.3 (1997): 217-238. MLA International Bibliography. Internet. March 14, 2014. Shakespeare, William and Keir Elam. Twelfth Night, or whatever you want. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2008. Print. Shapiro, Michael. Gender at play on the Shakespearean stage: boy heroines and female pages. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1994. Print.