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Gender roles shakespeare
Themes in othello essay
Gender roles in shakespeare's time
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Gender roles shakespeare
Themes in othello essay
Gender roles in shakespeare's time
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In Shakespeare's Othello women are often claimed to be deceptive, conniving, and just down right devious in the eyes of men, but in we also see the other side of the coin. Desdemona is a great example of how women behaved in Othello. Desdemona is often acquiescent, and quiet. She doesn't object to Othello's claims at the end, she submits and allows him to kill her, and blames herself for it. The rage and jealousy in Othello's heart lead him down the path of destruction.
In Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’, women are portrayed as either pure angelic beings and jewels, or as whores who are impure. They are objectified and shown as something to be used. The only women in this play are Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca compared to the main 6 male characters, not to mention the minor characters, who are also all male. Their depicted purpose is to belong to a man; Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca’s lives revolve around being wives to Othello, Iago and Cassio. This fits into the idea of a perfect Elizabethan woman, who’s lives are subject to their husband’s rule across all aspects, to be disposed of as men wish.
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe!” (Act I Scene 4)” (Cook 188). The lamb of God is a common reference to Jesus Christ who like a lamb is young and spotless without any imperfections. Othello’s Petrarchan view of Desdemona would also have been a sign that Desdemona is different than the other woman of Othello. A Petrarchan perspective marriage is when the wife is seen goddess-like and can do no
The way these women act and conduct themselves is unquestionably related to the ideological expectations of Elizabethan and patriarchal society. Desdemona, Othello 's wife and Brabantio 's daughter, is represented as the ideal woman. So she would never be disloyal to her husband. On many occasions, Desdemona obeys her husband firmly and calls herself obedient even after Othello hits her. She was loving and loyal to Othello and wishes a long marriage of prosperity and commitment that would lead to her ultimate happiness.
“ Let husbands know, their wives have sense like them : they see and smell, and have their palates for both sweet and sour, as husbands have.” She implies that men are weak minded which is very true, “They eat us hungrely, and when they are full they blech us. She exclaims they are unable to control their desires with logical thoughts. It is “natural” for women to be feminine and to do as their fathers and husbands tell them, Desdemona breaks her honor to her father by marrying Othello. Desdemona however only expresses her beliefs of men in private, but she shows power in
Desdemona is a white, Venetian debutante that chooses to marry a black man, a Moor, over the wishes of her father. At the beginning of the play, merely six hours after being married, Desdemona’s father attempts to stop her from accompanying Othello on military duty. He relents when Desdemona pledges her allegiance to Othello by telling her father, “But here’s my husband, And so much duty as my mother showed to you, preferring you before her father, so much I challenge that I may profess due to the Moor my Lord”
Shakespeare's Othello is set during the Renaissance period and therefore the roles of the women in Othello are supposedly bounded by the period when women are considered to be of low intellect. In Othello, most male characters assume that women are inherently promiscuous, which explains why all three women characters in the play are accused of sexual infidelity. Yet Shakespeare develops the women to speak the most sense throughout the play and able to trust other characters in the play. To the men in Othello, female sexuality is a threatening force more than it is an attractive one.
A culture that clung to sexist tradition and societies inbuilt gender roles that separated people amongst themselves. Desdemona represents all it means to be a woman of that time. She is a wife, daughter, and lineless character that is nothing but a possession to the men around her. Despite being a major character audiences hear more of her rather than from her. This verbal oppression is explained when Iago yells “Thieves, thieves!
In Othello, Othello and Desdemona are both characters that are struggling with their identities. In the beginning of the play we find Othello as a respectful man that is successful, but then we get Iago that manipulates him to make him seem as the bad guy. We also find Desdemona that turns against her father and the Elizabethan society to marry Othello, but we also find that she is respectful and obedient to Othello.
Also, each relationship in Othello provokes jealousy in one partner. In a typical Venetian society, a woman was considered to be a man’s property, so if a woman was disobedient, it negatively impacted the man, while also questioning his masculinity. The hyperbolic soliloquy as Othello expressed he would “rather be a toad” than “keep a corner of the thing I love” is Othello’s justification of killing his wife, as her untrustworthiness challenged his masculinity and reputation. Referring to Desdemona as a “thing” emphasises the idea of women being property. Iago’s jealousy of Desdemona and Othello’s relationship is emphasised through the degrading comment of Othello, “an old black ram” “tupping” Brabantio’s “white ewe”.
According to this society women were meant only to marry. They had responsibilities of house management and child rearing. Women were thought to be physiologically and psychologically weaker to men. Men considered women to be possessions. The only power that women do seem to be able to use – their sexual power - is considered to be an ‘evil’ which must be resisted by the men in society.
1. Consider one of the male-female relationships in Othello (Othello and Desdemona; Iago and Emilia; and Cassio and Bianca). Do they love or hate one another, or, is it both? How are the women treated in each relationship? Explain.
Olson, Rebecca. “ Too Gentle: Jealousy and Class in Othello.” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, 2015, pp. 3–25.
While Desdemona is a remarkably strong character, Emilia also displays independence unmatched by any other female in Othello, and there are multiple details of Shakespeare and his time that may have prompted such a portrayal. In Elizabethan England, many women worked behind the scenes of productions, like Shakespeare’s, as uncredited authors and editors (Crowley). Due to their anonymity, nobody can be sure that women were involved in Shakespeare’s plays nor Othello in particular, but there is a genuine possibility that female writers did have leverage. This may have had to do with how Emilia was portrayed as resilient from the time of Desdemona’s death all the way until her own, standing up for herself regardless of the ridicule it caused her (Iyasere). In fact, it even killed her in the end.
2. Loyalty is a negative trait in Othello. Many characters in Othello were very loyal and it ended in their demise. For example Othello’s loyalty to Iago ended in his death. Othello was so loyal to Iago because of Iago's ability to convince Othello that he was being truthful and that there was in fact, some unfaithfulness happening in his marriage.