Actions In William Shakespeare's Othello

The basis of Shakespeare’s plays appears to focus mainly around the dominant male character and his conflicts, which tend to deal with a woman. There are only three women in the play Othello; Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca. The way in which these women behave and present themselves strongly reflects the ideological expectations of women within Shakespeare’s imagined Venetian society as well as the Elizabethan society in which he lived. This patriarchal Venetian society presented in the play depicts women as possessions of men who should remain submissive and meek at all times. The women are expected to unselfishly and unreservedly devote their lives to serve their fathers until they are of age to do so, their husbands. All three women love

Desdemona’s action, instead of asking her father’s permission, eloped with the Moor, Othello, is another form of social transgressive action. It seems she denies her father any right in choosing or granting, instead she decides in her own, to marry Othello. This act of independence illustrates Desdemona’s transgression to perform her role as daughter, and reflects icons of masculine which is considered as “incorrect” gender performance. Marrying Othello has also proved that Desdemona breaks the social norms of women’s passivity during her time.

    In William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello, the wife of the protagonist, Desdemona, is the main female character. Secondly, there is the ancient’s wife, Emilia, who is morally ambivalent. Thirdly, there is the girlfriend of Michael Cassio, Bianca, who makes her appearance later in the drama. This essay will analyze the roles of these three women.

n Shakespeare's play Othello many issues are undertaken and explored. The three women play a vital role in this. Only one of the women in this play survives. All the women have no separate identity within the play; all three are married or associated with a male character. Bianca is the mistress of Cassio, Emilia is married to Iago and Desdemona is married with Othello. According to the time that the play was written in and the general hierarchy within Venetian society men hold all the power and women are considered to be of low intellect. Yet it is the women that speak the most sense throughout the play and it is also the women that are able to trust other characters in the play. Each woman represents a different social level, Desdemona

In Shakespeare’s Othello, the role of women is greatly emphasized. The important characters of the play, Othello, Iago, and Cassio, each have a women that stands behind him. These women each have an obligation to remain loyal and respect their husband's wishes, especially Desdemona and Emilia.

Women in the sixteenth century were commonly dominated by a patriarchal society. Meaning their loyalty and respect lay amongst the men in their lives with little choice for opposition. In Othello by William Shakespeare, he portrays the role of women in a way typical to their representation in Elizabethan and Venetian society. While the women may be presented as mentally stronger than their male counterparts, the language given to these female characters suggest that they have internalized society 's expectation of them. Apart from moments of private conversation and Emilia 's reaction to Desdemona 's death, the women behave in a submission that is expected of them, believing it to be the natural way, as the men continue to downgrade and treat them as secondary citizens. Shakespeare represents this status of women through the traditional views of the male characters, moments of submission from the females, and how the women internalize this society.

Desdemona is a character that can be read in multiple ways, some of which are more relevant to contemporary society than others. Desdemona can be interpreted as the “good woman” who despite displaying great virtues is murdered by her jealous husband or as a modern woman challenging oppressive societal values. Both readings are relevant to modern society however interpreting Desdemona, as the innocent victim is more relevant for contemporary society as audiences are more familiar with this

In this sense, Desdemona defies societal norms by marrying someone outside her race. When Othello is wondering where Desdemona could stay while he is away, the Duke responds: “Why, at her father’s!” (Shakespeare, 1.3.237), to which her father responds: “I’ll not have it so” (Shakespeare, 1.3.228). Because she marries Othello, Desdemona does not belong to the same rank in society anymore becoming an outcast even to her father. Once again, what was not the norm was seen as abnormal, thus, monstrous.

In Othello, the play vividly portrays the tragic fall of an admirable General who is transformed into a victim through manipulation by the atrocious villain, Iago. William Shakespeare illustrates the setting of Venice in the late 16th century, displaying gender inequality as an issue where wives are viewed as possessions belonging to their husbands. However, Emilia, being one of the most loyal characters, developed qualities of an early feminist who opposes unjustified treatment towards Desdemona. Emilia is practical and realistic due to her clear knowledge of humanity within both genders, in which she further challenges the male authority in order to advocate her right to speak.

In Othello, Shakespeare introduces us to many strong male figures such as Othello, Michael Cassio, Roderigo and Iago, but Shakespeare also created powerful women in this play as well. In fact, the women in the play tend to take front and centering in a lot of scene, stealing moments. The moments in particular would be the scenes towards the end of the play with Desdemona and Emili talking about a wife’s loyalty to her husband and how should she respond to him. Their beliefs in the play are put into action in the final Act, and even though they both have completely different views on relationships, they both follow their convictions.

In the play ‘Othello’ written by William Shakespeare, we see not only the main male character leads. But we also see the female characters, Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca. These three women were portrayed in ways that showed them being inferior to the other male roles as well as society during the Elizabethan Era. But Shakespeare made each of these individual ladies characteristics quite unique to one another having the traits of a feminist. Even though in the play we read how the male characters did somewhat control them and made them look weak compared to them, there were moments where Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca stood up for themselves.

Desdemona can easily be seen to embody an example of the perfect women in an Elizabethan society, being beautiful, obedient, and high born. Her submissive nature is often seen through her own lines in the play, for example “I am obedient” (III.3.89) and her statement in act 4 when Othello tells her to go to bed she replies with “I will, my lord” (IV.3.9). She continues to comply throughout the play, and even in her last moment she lies for her husband saying that she took her own life. Emilia is the female character who’s strength is more obvious than the rest, shown by her open willingness to betray her husband even though she is aware of that it is not the proper thing to do. “Tis proper I obey him, but not now” (V.2.195). However she

Women, especially Desdemona but Emilia as well, are obviously targets of male violence in Othello. For some reason Shakespeare’s play often put the emphasis on the role of the female characters and their influence on the main male characters. For instance, the result of the passionate love of Romeo for Juliet, the effect of Ophelia’s insanity had on hamlet, and so on. In Othello, Shakespeare made Desdemona and the other women in the play no different; Othello’s jalousie and love made the play a tragedy. Shakespeare made Desdemona the faithful wife of Othello. She was such a kindhearted and wished to make everything work even when the situation where she lost her handkerchief she tried to fix the situation and calming Othello. However, her innocent sympathy towards Cassio made lago’s lies more credible. Overall, one can say that her naïve nature causes her to become a target for the men in the play.

In our presentation of rewriting act five scene one and two of Shakespeare's play, Othello, we decided to focus on the minor characters, Emilia and Desdemona. In the original play, these women were expressed as submissive possessions to the male characters. In our version of Othello, we wanted to empower Emilia and Desdemona to further explore the theme of deception. We decided to empower the women with feminist traits to make their characters more dynamic than they are portrayed in the original play. When making changes, we decided that Emilia and Desdemona should have an intimate relationship, that the men are unaware about. Since this relationship was a secret, the women were extremely deceptive to the men as they were ignorant of the women's

In Shakespeare’s disastrous play, Othello, love becomes a weapon used against lovers. Othello, a respected military commander, lives a joyous life with Desdemona and his trusted friends. However, his ancient Iago harbors a secret hatred towards him, with a complicated plan to ruin Cassio and Othello while simultaneously elevating his own status. With the help of Iago’s cunning and trickery, Othello kills his beloved Desdemona in a jealous rage. Even though this play displays two strong women characters throughout the plot, it is Iago’s wife Emilia who evolves the most from a picture-perfect image of a wife to defying her traditional gender roles and pays the ultimate price of independence with her own life.