More handpicked essays just for you.
Analysis of racism in the play othello
Analysis of racism in the play othello
Shakespearean gender roles in Othello
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Moreover, Shakespeare presents Desdemona as a celestial figure at the start of Act 3 scene 3, as to when Cassio regards her as being ‘Bounteous’, meaning generous or plentiful. However, the word is often associated with agriculture and because of this; the word could also arguably be linked with the Cornucopia, or horn of plenty, which in Greco-Roman mythology was a personification of the Earth. This makes Desdemona seem ethereal and thus Goddess-like. This is further emphasised as to when Cassio almost dehumanise himself by referring to himself in third-person: “Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio”, which in contrast to Desdemona’s previous Goddess-like appearance, makes him seem almost worthless. Similarly, ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’
Desdemona shows where her loyalty lies in this quote. At the start, Desdemona talks about her duty to her father, Brabantio, and how she is supposed to respect him above all others. Desdemona then turns it around by talking about how her mother showed more duty to Brabantio than her own father and Desdemona says that she will do the same. Desdemona proves her loyalty to Othello quite well. She chose her husband, the man she loved, over her own father.
Shakespeare’s Othello, an early 17th century play, is a widely renowned work that is still studied in a psychological aspect worldwide today. The eponym of the play had ambivalent feelings for Desdemona, his wife, that were prevalent in the sense that he’d gone to extreme lengths, such as; abusing her, mistreating her, and ultimately murdering her. This was all due to his inner conflict of his love, yet intense hatred for Desdemona. All of his unsureness about Desdemona, though, was due to his true flaw- insecurity in himself. He had internal feuds about whether he, a black man in 16th century Venice, was a satisfactory husband for a noble white woman.
Do people often get accused of doing the right thing? Or is it always being accused of the wrong? In the play Othello by Shakespeare Desdemona is being accused of cheating on her newly wedded husband Othello. When she has been nothing but loyal to him, even loyal to him over her own father. Iago feed’s Othello these lies at times of vulnerability, and drops all these hints slowly.
Iago uses very clever methods of persuasion and manipulation aimed to use Othello’s hamartia against him, pointing out that “ “She (Desdemona) did deceive her father, marrying you,” so much so that Brabantio “thought ’twas witchcraft”. Through this, Iago is subtly raising the issues of Othello’s cultural differences with Desdemona; a root cause behind Othello’s insecurities with his wife – along with inadequacy due to race, degree of sophistication and age. As Iago prompts Othello to think the worst, his utterances are short and uneasy, revealing the beginning to his downfall, whilst Iago’s dialogue is at length highlighting his growing power of
There is also a particular scene in the playing which Desdemona for shadows her death. She tells Emilia that if she should die before her maid, she wishes to die in her wedding sheets. In act four scene three Desdemona quotes “If I do die, before thee, prithee shroud me In one of these sheets”. The audience knows that Othello is going to kill Desdemona, but not how or where. And this basically spoils it.
Most importantly, other lesson that we can gain from this novel is don’t listen to gossip. For instance, life was going pretty swimmingly for Othello as an awesome occupation as a general in the Venetian army, happy marriage to his adored Desdemona. It’s all until the point that he began listening to revolting tattle monger, Iago. The plotting deceiver dishonestly persuades him that Desdemona has been unfaithful: Othello covers her to death, discovers that she was innocent from the beginning, at that point commits suicide.
Throughout the play we observe Emilia’s character change, and how she suffered the consequence of challenging the system. Shakespeare’s Othello, utilises a range of dramatic techniques to showcase how women where portrayed during early modern England, as tools, chaste and naive. The antagonist, Iago takes this to advantage to manipulate his wife to unintentionally take a part in the moral dissembling of Othello. The idea where women were being victimised is presented when Iago utilises his power and authority to
As a result, Iago motivated Othello’s jealous and to kill Desdemona in bed by smothering her. Then, Iago killed Emilia for speaking out the truth. This plan of manipulating Othello worked in Iago’s favor because of the gender inequality that occurs
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”.
Her sole aspiration is to impress and please him. "Heaven knows, not I; I nothing but to please his fantasy. " she said as she theif on Desdemona’s handkerchief. This great love, which is a redeeming trait in her personality and morality. Despite of her affection, she eventually recognizes Iago’s disinterest towards her and inequality in their marriage.
Olson, Rebecca. “ Too Gentle: Jealousy and Class in Othello.” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, 2015, pp. 3–25.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of err is: “to make a mistake.” Within Shakespeare’s Othello there are plentiful amounts of mistakes being made; the main of which being Othello’s doubts in his wife, Desdemona. Although it may seem that Othello’s err of murdering Desdemona is simply due to the fact Iago is giving Othello false clues of his wife’s ‘affair’ with one of his lieutenants, Cassio; it is actually caused by Othello’s tragic flaw: his lack of self-confidence. Othello states, once he begins doubting Desdemona’s honesty, “Haply, for I am black and have not those soft parts of conversation that chamberers have, or for I am declined into the vale of years […]”
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.
At one point in time, women were not humans but objects who were expected to be obedient, serve their family, and reproduce. William Shakespeare hinted that he was against these values through the characters Desdemona and Emilia in his tragic play, Othello. The play took place in Cyprus, Italy, as well as Venice, Italy. Desdemona was loyal to the protagonist of the story, Othello, who was General of the Venetian Army. Emilia was married to the story’s cynical antagonist, Iago, who was 2 ranks under Othello.
