An Analysis Of Toni Morrison's Desdemona

    In William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello, the wife of the protagonist is Desdemona. She is a lovely, intelligent, wholesome and pious person. This essay will analyze her.

In William Shakespeare's ‘Othello,’ Othello himself is seen as the obvious outsider because of his race. However, his own wife Desdemona can be reasoned to be just as much of an outcast, even though she’s described as the perfect woman. She affected the actions and feelings of other characters by being young, innocent and easily manipulated, and by being so visually striking.

By implementing a contemporary feminist viewpoint in “Othello”, contemporary responders are able to analyse and connect with the theme of womanhood and relate it to a modern context. In A.C. Bradley’s “Shakespearean Tragedy” (1957), Desdemona is described as “the sweetest and most pathetic of

It is within human nature to fear that which we do not understand. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, this idea is explored through the lens of racial discrimination. In this passage, Morrison uses animal imagery as a means to criticize the whites’ dehumanization and subsequent fear of the blacks. With a focus on this inherent, primal fear, this section stresses the novel’s theme of the “Other” and reinforces the existence of racial prejudice. While this piece of the narrative emphasizes that this “othering” strips the blacks of human identity, it also brings to the forefront the idea that through this cruel evaluation of the blacks, the whites only degrade themselves. This reinforces the novel’s idea that anywhere slavery exists, each individual suffers a loss of compassion and humanity.

The Lenses of Gender by Sandra Bem begins by introducing the three lenses that will be discussed in the book: androcentrism, gender polarization, and biological essentialism. The most significant aspect to this reading was the concept of females being an addition to males or the ‘other’. Specifically, this idea is derived from a biblical view. When taking a look at the creation of man and the story of Adam of Eve, “Adam is explicitly given the power to name--that is, define--every single creature on earth, including women… Adam is unambiguously said to be created in God’s image. Eve, in contrast, is an inferior departure from this godly standard,” (Bem, 1993, p. 46) This perception of females being below the male standard carries out throughout

Men and women were seen as two different kinds of human beings, differentiated by their

In order to understand how the social norms of gender came to be, I believe we need to look at the role of women throughout history. Across many cultures, we can see a common idea of a woman being a property of a man whose

We live in a binary gender system. Nearly every action, reaction, judgement, and decision can be traced back to this simple fact. Aside from just oppressing those that don’t identify as a part of this binary system or fit perfectly into it, we also oppress those who aren’t in the half of the population that come out on top in this system. To be a “man” in the definition we have constructed it to be is to be superior and it shows in the way we raise children, and how the idea of a human being was thought of for much of history. In our readings these ideas are touched on and we are forced to confront these truths in our own lives.

Themes are explored through literally every piece of literature. However, it takes a special author to do it in the same way that Toni Morrison did in her short story “Recitatif.” Morrison tells the story of two young girls who have been brought together by rather unfortunate circumstances. This unexpected fate leads to a lot of self-discovery and realizations of the cold world the two girls live in. Through Morrison’s writing, the theme of race is very heavily explored.

In all of Toni Morrison’s writing, race is a present theme. In “Recitatif,” she challenges the reader to question what they see as actions commonly done by one race. She accomplishes this by giving Twyla and Roberta stereotypical traits from both races in her story. For example, when their mothers come to visit St. Bonny’s, Roberta’s mother is portrayed as physically large, as well as by the religious symbols she carries. In contrast, when the two characters meet again, the racial stereotypes have been flipped. Morrison states, “I was dying to know what happened to her, how she [Roberta] got from Jimi Hendrix to Annandale, a neighborhood full of doctors and IBM executives. Easy, I thought. Everything is so easy for them” (9). The whole story

In the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison, two major settings of Sethe’s life enhance the plot by comparing Sethe’s goals at the beginning of the story to the outcome at the end. Sethe runs away from Sweet Home to 124 in pursuit of finding safety, peace, and freedom. Morrison uses 124 Bluestone Road, Sethe’s haunted residence, and Sweet Home, the place where she used to work as a slave, to uncover repressed memories of Sethe’s experiences with slavery and why she murdered Beloved.

The slave era of the 17th century forced blacks to be in the lower class of the economic scale. This is due to slavery being created for white elites to have black men work for them without pay. Because slaves are not paid and are constantly under systematic oppression, they do not have the opportunity to gain power and oppose black stereotypes. Black males are automatically labeled as inferior since whites control the lives of the black men. Class status dictates the concept of black masculinity as inferior to white, since wealthy men tend to have more power and are providers; while the roles of lowerclassmen are uneducated and lethargic. In 1977 Toni Morrison creates characters of the Dead family in her novel Song of Solomon to explain

The slave era of the 17th century forced blacks to be in the lower class of the economic scale. This is due to slavery being created for white elites to have black men work for them without pay. Because slaves are not paid and are constantly under systematic oppression, they do not have the opportunity to gain power and oppose black stereotypes. Black males are automatically labeled as inferior since whites control the lives of the black men. Class status dictates the concept of black masculinity as inferior to white, since wealthy men tend to have more power and are providers; while the roles of lowerclassmen are uneducated and lethargic. In 1977 Toni Morrison creates characters of the Dead family in her novel Song of Solomon to explain that the different levels of class status further enhances prejudice and competition between black men. Toni Morrison’s critique on black masculinity is that an equal economic level must be formed between black and white communities to eliminate systematic racism and stereotypes against black men.

Universally, the status of a woman in a society is secondary to a man’s status. On the other hand, there are societies today that man is subordinate to woman. The treatments and symbolizations of women are diverse and vary from culture to culture. No cultures are exactly the same. In this critical review of Ortner (1974) “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture” I will attempt to give a summary and critical analysis on the article.

From a biological point of view, humanity comprises two sexes, men and women. It is determined by a person’s sexual anatomy, chromosomes, and hormones. It’s inborn, the moment we have been born, we are judged as male or female according to the physiological characteristics. But gender difference is based on the concept of gender, which refers to socially defined differences between men and women. In the society, we are treated different because of different sex; we accept different education, grow up in different culture and so on. Then men and women will have many differences that are gender difference. Gender differences can reflect in different aspects, such as physiological, social behavior, communication, etc. I’m going to explore that gender difference are mainly reflected in what areas of life in this paper.