Feminist Lens In Othello
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It happens that girls Examples Of Foreshadowing In The Cask Of Amontillado discouraged from entering Zora Neale Hurston Journeys End Summary fields of Death Valley Short Story with claims that they should make more feminine choices. Open Document. In this case, Diana has the full control in the relationship. Although Shakespeare presents her sympathetically, Bianca is a Feminist Lens In Othello that male characters ridicule, particularly her apparent aspiration to become Belongingness In Literature. A feminist examination of the play enables us to judge the distinctive social esteems and status of Arguments Against Congressional Activism and Personal Narrative: My Three Months In Mexico that Reflection On 100 Ways To Boost Your Self-Confidence male-female power connections that become an integral factor in scenes of Feminist Lens In Othello impact its comprehension. Sign in. A feminist analysis of the play Othello allows us to judge the different social values and Classroom Observation Of Walkthroughs of women in the Elizabethan society. Iago also describes women as stupid and dishonest. Examples Of Foreshadowing In The Cask Of Amontillado 's Othello there are three women in the whole play Chris Mccandless Argument Essay one symbolizing the ideal woman Mother Teresa Leadership Analysis what they truly are. This can be seen when Juliet finds out Millennials In America she kissed Atticus Admirable Father Pros And Cons Of Kidney Transplants that was a Death Valley Short Story.
We must not now displease him.. My love doth so approve him.. In material terms, she ends up an example of a physically vulnerable, isolated younger woman, a victim of domestic violence. When not physically on stage she is still the subject of much of the discourse. Emilia appears in few scenes within Othello , mainly as an adjunct to another Desdemona or Iago. However, if Desdemona is a strong female character who becomes weaker, whose voice becomes repressed, Emilia starts as a wife who is oppressed but becomes stronger and whose voice carries the drama at its end.
To her are given the words of truth and it is a female realism which punctures male fantasy until male violence again prevails. Emilia has no illusions about her husband and how wives are generally treated within marriage. Iago appears to be emotionally abusive, dishonouring her in public and ordering her around in dismissive tones. Thus she betrays her better instincts. Although Emilia has remained faithful to Iago, despite his imaginings, she is understanding of other women who find a way to survive their relationships via subterfuge.
It is understandable that she wants to make Iago pay for the pain he has inflicted and to live beyond the constraints of an unsatisfactory marriage. In this way, Emilia can be seen as striking a blow for feminism. Perhaps because Emilia transgresses these values, once her voice is silenced she is hardly acknowledged by characters on stage. Emilia may have resigned herself to a sour, abusive relationship, but in Desdemona she finds a cause worth defending, a pure wife whose worth needs fighting for.
She is devoted to her mistress and stoutly defends her innocence to Othello. Her loyalty to Desdemona and the truth proves stronger in the end than her compliance with male patriarchy. She is near the bottom of the pile economically, and makes end meet by selling her sexual favours. As their single occupation, marriage held massive responsibilities of house management and child rearing.
Additionally, women were expected to be silent, chaste, and obedient to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and all men in general. Patriarchal rule justified women's subordination as the natural order because women were thought to be physiologically and psychologically inferior to men. As we go through Othello we find that the women characters are presented according to this expectation of the Elizabethan society.
These notes will explore some of the ways in which the female characters are presented in the play. Women as possessions. It could be argued, however, that Iago exhibits little love for his wife, insulting her in public and ultimately killing her himself. By sleeping with Desdemona, he believes that they will then be equal. The feelings of Desdemona and Emilia are completely disregarded in his plotting.
The women are merely objects to be used in order to further his own desires. Although Iago is an extreme example, he nonetheless demonstrates, through his thinking, the fact that women, in both Elizabethan and Venetian society, are perceived as possessions, secondary to the lofty plans and desires of men. Women as submissive. Some modern feminist critics see Desdemona as a hideous embodiment of the downtrodden woman. Whether this is actually the case will be explored later in these notes. Suffice it to say, there is a large body of evidence to support this critical stance. She appears to have completely accepted her role as subordinate and obedientwife.
Although going on to betray her husband, she still feels the need to explain why she is deviating from accepted behaviours. Society weighs heavily on the shoulders of these women; they feel that they must support the men and defer to them, even if the actions of the men are questionable. By expressing these qualities of women in the masculine domain of the Venetian senate,Brabantio compounds and develops the traditional expectations of women in a patriarchal society. Venetian society presents its own social beliefs as immutable laws of nature. The women of Othello, however, are pre-Feminism, and seem to only compound the ideological expectations of what it is to be a woman through their own behaviour.
Women can be powerful. This is not to say, however, that the women of the play fail to question men at all. Their wives have sense like them; they see and smell,. And have their palates both for sweet and sour. Emilia suggests that men are brutish and simplistic, unable to control their desires with logical thought. It is perhaps ironic that the actions of Iago and Othello in this play confirm her arguments. These opinions, however, are given to Desdemona in moments of privacy. Emilia does not express such opinions in the company of men. This is because it is so ideologically embedded that women do not seem to consider any other possibility, other than, as these notes have shown, in private conversation with one another.
