Feminine Roles in Othello Essay

Desdemona’s family majorly influences her identity. In many cases Desdemona’s father expresses his opinions and it changes how she sees herself, and how others see her. When Desdemona falls in love with Othello, Brabantio (Desdemona’s father) is shocked. Brabantio believes that Othello has stolen and enchanted his daughter into loving him and expresses this thought to the Duke. Brabantio tells Othello “O, thou foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter? Damned as thou art,

During this scene, between Othello, Desdemona and her father, Brabantio, Desdemona’s strength is portrayed when she professes her love to Othello in front of her father, ignoring his opinion of her marriage. Within this scene, Desdemona’s father

The relationship between Desdemona and Othello in the play ‘Othello’ is used to express and observe the way that humans are selfish by nature. Although both Desdemona and Othello do sincerely love each other, both of them find great personal gain in their marriage, which clearly contributes to their feelings for one another. Othello, who is a black leader in an overwhelmingly white, Christian society, has come from a troubled and difficult background, being “sold to slavery” and working in the military all his life. In finding a good Christian wife in Desdemona, he finds someone to always support him in hard times, as evidenced in his summary of their romance, “she loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them”. This quote suggests that their love is more self-serving than he lets on; Desdemona loves Othello for the adventures he has been on and the stories he tells, and Othello loves Desdemona because she listens and devotes herself to what he has to say. When Desdemona gets a chance to explain their relationship herself, she is particularly proud of the fact that she “did love the Moor to live with him; my downright violence and storms of fortunes may trumpet to the world”. We note that she mentions her ‘violence’, the way she deliberately disobeyed her father and fled his company to secretly marry a man who is not one of her father’s approved suitors. This furthers the idea that Desdemona seems to be in love with Othello because of the adventures he has been on, and the excitement and liberty of her being with such a man; she is seeking her own freedom in a misogynistic society by defying her father to marry Othello. Their relationship is

The proceedings which take place before the Duke of Venice cause the young wife to assume a heretofore-unheard-of role for herself – that of barrister. She is compelled by the situation to stand before the senators and duke, members of the City Council of Venice, and present her side of the story in a convincing manner. As a lawyer she does remarkably well.

Othello, by William Shakespeare is well known for its richness in literary content and elements pertinent to societal ideas. Moreover, women are portrayed in Othello in ways that confirm, but also contradict their treatment in Shakespeare’s time. Both female action and language represent these ideas such as expectations for a wife and expectations for how a woman is to act. That said, there are many other lines spoken by these characters that defy the expectations placed on women at time. Overall, the feminist critical lens allows a reader to understand Othello and the manner in which it is slightly sexist and controversial. This lens allows the reader to observe both discrepancies of how women are treated, and common characteristics found

When Brabantio has finally located Othello, with torches on another street in the middle of the night, the senator exclaims loudly his right of ownership: “O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?” With the Turkish campaign against Cyprus in motion, the Duke of Venice scarcely has time for Brabantio’s protestations. Furthermore, the duke recognizes Desdemona’s right to marry whomever she prefers. In exasperation the senator disowns his Desdemona, not permitting her to stay at home while Othello is away at Cyprus. So she goes with the ancient and Emilia.

Women played a role of low society classed humans in the play Othello. The plight of women in the play can be a good example of how women and men were treated differently throughout the story. Woman was treated as an object or even a commodity during that period; Desdemona can be a perfect example of this idea. Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, treated

In the twelfth to the seventeenth century, men and women had their own roles that define them in each category either men or women. The author demonstrates that Gender Roles characterizes individual most in the Marriage that women should serve their husband and Virginity or sex after married was a treasure to admire in women. In the play, Othello: The Moor of Venice, William Shakespeare illustrates Gender Roles as characterization of the plays, to portray the individual characteristics and roles.

By lying for her husband Othello and saying she killed herself instead of the truth, Desdemona displays that she has her accepted her role as a subordinate in society even though Othello does not go along with the lie and admits that he was the one who murdered her by his conscious. Another instance of the submissiveness of women in “Othello” is how women always support the men in “Othello” no matter how questionable the men’s actions are, the women continue to support the men. Brabantio argues that this is the way of women, and that when women disobey men that it is unnatural, he says that when his daughter Desdemona goes against his orders and marries Othello without his permission,

Desdemona Certainly had all of the feminized qualities like obedience. She belongs to the higher social level in the society. With Othello’s such masculine qualities, authority and aggression the play acts as if she is under him. By the end of the play Othello has verbally and physically abused her and she is so beaten down by him she is passive when he goes on to strangle her. As Desdemona declares herself “I am obedient” (Act 3 scene 3, line 89).

The proceedings which take place before the Duke of Venice cause the young wife to assume a heretofore-unheard-of role for herself – that of barrister. She is compelled by the situation to stand before the senators and duke, members of the City Council of Venice, and present her side of the story in a convincing manner. As a lawyer she does remarkably well.

In Shakespeare’s play Othello, the role women played in those times was clearly depicted by their actions. All throughout history, women around the world have struggled to attain the rights they have today. Women were always viewed as weaker than men, who thought of them as property. In reading Othello, it becomes clear that the women characters are expected to live up to the expectations that society sets upon them. In Othello, the role of women was clearly presented as being significantly weaker than men.

In Act 1 Scene1, Iago persuades the rejected suitor of Desdemona, Roderigo, to accompany him to the home of Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, in the middle of the night. Once there the two awaken him with loud shouts about his daughter’s elopement with Othello. In response to Iago’s vulgar descriptions of Desdemona’s involvement with the general, Brabantio arises from bed and, with Roderigo’s help, gathers a search party to go and find Desdemona and bring her home. The father’s attitude is that life without his Desdemona will be much worse than before:

Brabantio’s rage, among other reasons, necessitate that Desdemona live with Iago and Emilia during the Moor’s campaign in Cyprus against the Turks. While awaiting the arrival of Othello’s ship at the seaport of Cyprus, Desdemona shows herself an intelligent, educated debater. She grows tired of Iago’s

She makes use of such power when she is explaining to her father, in front of the Venetian senators, that her ‘duty’ is to Othello and not to him. Desdemona is a courageous and decisive woman who pursues Othello, falling in love with his intrigued stories of adventure, seeing "Othello's visage in his mind, and to his honors and valiant parts" refusing the attempts of other suitors such as Roderigo. When Shakespeare wrote Othello, women had very few rights and Desdemona is not portrayed as one of those women. Women of that time had no right to chose their husband but despite receiving offers from various suitors and public discouragement, Desdemona married Othello and made it evident that her duty was no longer to her father but was to Othello just as “Duty my mother showed to you” . However there are instances when Desdemona is portrayed as a possession and her character becomes weak. We see the role of a women after marriage in Othello’s loving words to Desdemona, “Come, my dear love, The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue” . It signifies that the man buys the woman by marriage. She is also referred to as a ‘whore’, a ‘subtle whore’ and a ‘cunning whore’, in addition to multiple references to her as a