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Role of the woman in literature
Themes of feminism in literature
Analysis of Shakespeare
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Role of the woman in literature
Themes of feminism in literature
Analysis of Shakespeare
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In William Shakespeare’s “Othello”, Othello is a Venetian General who sails to Cyprus to fight the Turkish fleet. Before Othello goes to Cyprus, he secretly marries Desdemona, a young and beautiful Venetian girl by telling his war stories. Due to fate and Shakespeare’s use of assonance, it results in all the characters traveling to Cyprus. Othello and Desdemona leave Venice with the excitement of being a newlywed couple and plan to have their honeymoon in Cyprus. Othello’s love for Desdemona fails as his hamartia of jealousy and skepticalness causes his trust for Desdemona to break, as she is an inexperienced and young youth.
Desdemona is the perpetual dutiful wife to Othello, which fulfills feminist expectations of women as wives during this time period. Othello was written in the Elizabethan Era, so that means that Desdemona had to be the perfect wife that a Elizabethan wive would be. Desdemona had to obey the commands that was given to her. Desdemona can be viewed as submissive and oppressed.
Desdemona is the perpetual dutiful wife to Othello, which fulfills feminist expectations of women as wives during this time period. Desdemona can be viewed as submissive and oppressed.n this quote, Othello is stating that his wife’s supposed infidelity has ruined his name and turned it “black” and dirty like his own face, showing that a woman’s fidelity was linked to a man’s honor. In this case, a woman’s promiscuity not only devalued her, but also her partner.
but it also states that women are seen as a commodity to be given, transported and bought. In addition, it explores the characterisation of Desdemona of how much submissive she is to Othello. This highlights that Shakespeare was a man who viewed women just the same as a man. His emphasis on gender equality allows viewers to get a glimpse of how women are treated and how men should treat
Othello is a tragedy focused on the sacrifices of all the characters and throughout it all Shakespeare is determined to emphasize what the meaning of sacrifice truly is. Sacrifice by itself reveals much about a character as it slices through any false pretenses and exposes what a person truly holds dear. Desdemona is living the perfect life and marries a wonderful man but her fairytale lifestyle begins to crumble. Throughout this play, Desdemona sacrifices every aspect of her lifestyle, from her character to her body and even her life for Othello in order to demonstrate her love for him. Before Desdemona had met Othello, she was living quite the life in Venice.
Although Othello has risen to power in a society where he is an outsider, he still believes he may be inferior because of it. His inability to disprove this belief in his marriage leads to his tragic downfall. After Shakespeare has first introduced the audience to the newlyweds, he immediately sends them off to challenges at Cyprus. Along with their own physical differences, they now lack the time to find a common ground of interests. This is the first crack in the foundation of Othello and Desdemona’s love.
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”
“Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity.” – Sylvia Plath From Elizabethan society in Othello to mid-20th century in the Bell Jar, just as stated from Plath, patriarchy in the form of social convention and expectation defines the life of women with feminity. I. The oppressive patriarchal society in Othello
Desdemona, daughter to senator Brabantio has spurned the advances of eligible young Venetian men, but is captivated by Othello chiefly because of his harsh experiences. We first come
The repetition of the word ‘lust’, combined with the sexual associations of Desdemona’s bed, reflects and draws attention to Othello’s preoccupation with sensual matters. Othello even refers to his precious wife as ‘whore’ (III.iii.356), a ‘subtle whore’ (III.ii.20) and a ‘cunning whore’ (IV.ii.88), in a way to appreciate him. Shakespeare actually has indirectly revealed Othello’s fear of Desdemona’s sexuality. Even though Othello seems to be very confident in him and his control over Desdemona, he is actually tentative and afraid that Desdemona will cheat on him, proving his
At the start of the play, Othello, uses his word to win Desdemona over by the stories that he is telling her father. Othello and Desdemona also define their love
A Modern View of Feminist Criticism William Shakespeare 's "Othello” can be analyzed from a feminist perspective. This criticism focuses on relationships between genders, like the patterns of thoughts, behavior, values, enfranchisement, and power in relations between and within sexes. A feminist examination of the play enables us to judge the distinctive social esteems and status of women and proposes that the male-female power connections that become an integral factor in scenes of Othello impact its comprehension. I believe that the critical lens that provides modern society with the most compelling view of literature is Feminist Criticism because it analyzes distrust and disloyalty among relationships, women being treated as possessions
MLA International Bibliography EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/jem.2015.0006. Accessed 14 Mar. 2017. Synopsis Jealousy is evident in Shakespeare’s Othello through several sources, but most commonly seen as possessiveness over the female characters (with a focus on Desdemona) in the play.
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.
In his play “Othello,” Shakespeare is very compassionate towards the women of his era. He treats Desdemona with special sympathy. She is the victim of two crossed male aspirations — the devilry of villain Iago and the jealousy of her husband. The main cause of Desdemona’s tragedy is the total absence of women’s personal liberty. The lack of self-development without restrictions of society and family constricts the mind.