Epicoene

If women achieve some sort of tenuous status through the consumption of commodities (which are meant to aid in the performance of a "perfected" commodity, that is, their bodies), are we to take Truewit's insistence that they should only conduct their "dressing" in private as a preliminary argument for accepting Dauphine as a "perfect gentleman" because his "efforts at trickery are completely absent from the play, and . . . (his) social power thus appears to be an entirely laborless production" (Zucker)? His commentary seems to also suggest what is considered an appropriate means to acceptable feminine status and power, but as Prof. Zucker notes in his article, there is clearly anxiety expressed in the play about the "new possibilities for women in an expanding public sphere." With images of symbolic castration, Truewit's mention of "hermaphroditical authority" and Epicoene him/herself, how does the idea of hermaphrodite impact the possibilities for status and complicate gender divisions in attaining degrees of status? Does Dauphine's manipulation of a (nearly) man in his plot hearken back to more traditional roles of power (i.e. prior to a loss of identity and social function as discussed in the play's introduction)?