Gia Mancuso
Mr. Ellrott
Advanced Composition
08 February 2023
Othello
Through a feminist lens, it is evident that views on women are second-class. In William Shakespeare's Othello, it is demonstrated that women are held to preeminent standards. Othello epitomized in various cases that women had no say so in judgment of themselves. Othello allowed himself to be deceived by Iago's tellings, which caused him to form a different view on his wife, outside of what she projected to him. Throughout the five acts and fifteen scenes, women were subjected to the desires and criticism of men.
Othello let the other men around him determine the value of his wife, regardless of the image she profiled of herself. Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, was the first to place an opposing thought of Desdemona in Othello's head. Brabantio stated,
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Desdemona's actions reflected how Othello felt he was looked at or to be treated. Othello tells Desdemona that her cheating on him makes him a target for ridicule. He explains “To try me with affliction, had they rained all kinds of sores and shames on my bare head steeped me in poverty to the very lips, given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,I should have found in some place of my soul a drop of patience. But alas, to make me a fixed figure for the time of scorn” (4.2.57-65). Othello allows his feelings about himself to be justified by a woman's actions. Because he is sought to believe that Desdemona is cheating he alters his whole image of himself causing anger. “I will chop her into messes! Cuckold me?” (4.1.219) Othello inflicted a whole new personality on himself, allowing to be shamed in the society they were in. Othello allows Desdemona's actions to make him feel less of a man. “The immortal Jove's dread clamors are counterfeit, Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!” (3.3.397-409) He feels he cannot no longer hold a masculine title with Desdemona betraying