Shakespeare’s 1603 tragic drama, ‘Othello’, portrays women’s perception of their own role and men’s perception of women’s role. From the very first act he presents the protagonist, Othello as a dominant and physically powerful figure. He is a military man, with good judgement and his profession brings him a high status in the city of Venice. Because of this status, his marriage with Desdemona; an inexperienced and naïve woman causes her to become oppressed by society. Similarly, Tennessee William’s Southern, Gothic play depicts Stanley’s animalistic vigour that is evident in his love of work, fighting and sex. His crude and brutish attitude causes Stella to become weak in the relationship however, she desires him even though she plays a submissive …show more content…
According to George Marotous, who wrote from a feminist prospective for A Streetcar Named Desire, women are “uniquely vulnerable to masculine attack, frequently for purposes of domination, not sexual release”. To a great extent, this can be seen as true due to Stanley’s rough childhood; where his family had several problems financially but also domestically as well as his father, who was an alcoholic and often abused his mother and him. Due to these events, leading up to his lifestyle, Stanley is expected to have control and to gain whatever he wants, in order to maintain that authority. Stanley usually does this in a physicality manner; sexually or aggressively which is evident when Blanche describes him as acting “like an animal, has animal habitats”. However, one could debate that in Act 3, Stanley’s character changes from an aggressive, abusive drinker to tender loving husband when he regrets striking Stella “my baby doll’s left me!” And craves for her affection back, reuniting at the bottom of the stairs and Stella referring him “as good as a lamb…and was very, very ashamed of himself”. In addition to this, in agreement to Scott Guffey Desdemona can be considered as a peer rather than a docile “Desdemona portrayed herself to Othello as more of his peer”. We can see this when she listened to Othello’s stories she would “devour up my discourse”, share experiences; wanting to be present throughout Othello’s adventures and converse about matters of life. Overall, in my opinion, these females are representatives of early modern literature however, we can assume that they could have been depicted differently if the book was written in a modern